Jonathan’s actual birthday saw us at my Mum’s house in London (having spent the night before there and enjoying a lovely meal out with my family the night before at a little noodle bar Dim t in Hampstead- great food and company always a good combination!). So Jonathan got to open some family presents before we headed out for the day.
We were in London to go along to the Big Bang Fair, a science fair with hands on activities and live shows. Our assessment of it was it was good for free but when we took into account the ferry fair and petrol it wasn’t such good value – however Jonathan had a good time and lots of science and maths was done and we met up with good friends there too.
We headed home and had Jonathan’s official birthday the following day. Everyone gets to choose all the meals on their birthday so Jonathan chose bacon bagels for breakfast, ham and cheese toasties for lunch and toad in the hole for dinner – all nice and easy which is always helpful – last year he wanted sushi and beef pie which was much more complicated (not to mention expensive). We did presents and cards after breakfast.
After church there was more food and then time spent making paper aeroplanes from Jonathan’s new book and then having competitions flying them – including one that involved needing to do a dance while you threw them!
Then a week or so later we managed to find time to fit in a birthday party. Jonathan wanted to have a magic cards birthday but also had friends he wanted to invite that didn’t have an interest in magic cards – we managed to achieve this by having two overlapping parties. Party 1 people had an hour of Lego (and youtube clips) and then pizza then home , party 2 people came to join in with the pizza and then magic cards then home. During this party I had a great time downstairs chatting with some of the mums and drinking tea – it’s great when the kids want parties that don’t involve too much parental involvement. My main involvement was sourcing the mountains of Lego from my friend and making a serious mountain of pizza.
Then the final installment of his birthday was the present we had given him. It was a birds of prey experience with Haven Falconry. Jonathan and I were the only ones there and we got to learn lots about the birds and to fly them. It was great.
The Barn Owl- this was definitely our favourite to touch as it was so soft and its feathers were and was my favourite to look at.
The Harris Hawk – my favourite to fly
The Kestrel – this little bird was Jonathan’s favourite to fly.
The Something Something Scots Owl from South Africa – beautiful to look at, Jonathan’s favourite from this perspective.
Finally a week and a half after his actual birthday we are finished with the celebrations!