Craft Day

Highlight of the week for Beth: Craft Day at her friend A's.

The invitation was very cleverly worded: not a birthday party but a craft day. Nevertheless,we thought it appropriate - as A's birthday is in July - to have Beth pick her a present. Beth chose a Go Girl gift pack: 2 books in a bowling bag. Nice.

After mediating between the squabbling parties in the backseat and trying to memorize the Melways directions to A's house, I was really relieved to actually reach my destination, a lovely house in Rose Grange estate.

RG is huge. It starts at the corner of Morris Rd next to Wyndham Village and goes all the way up north till Leakes Rd, which is the last road before the freeway to Melbourne. Despite my best efforts, I managed to miss the sign for the entrance to Baden Powell Drive (why must street names be so tiny and so obscurely placed?) and had to divert into the next available left, which unfortunately led straight to a Road Closed sign - and a construction site. One illegal U-turn later, I finally found BPD, when I was actually close enough to read the street sign. It's actually opposite the Reserve estate and is at a traffic junction.

Another milestone for the nervous driver.

Beth and her four friends spent the morning assembling aliens out of felt material, cutting, sewing (!), stuffing and finally sticking on decorative buttons and pom-poms.

To A's mother who organized for everyone to be fed and entertained for 5 1/2 hours (they were supposed to finish at 2 but the 'party' went on till 3.30) AND supervised the craft project AND made the cupcakes for the birthday party afterward, I take my beanie off. An absolutely outstanding, hard-to-top effort. Mind you, she has two other kids, both boys, and she had to think of how to keep everyone happy. So she sent her eldest off to visit Nana around the corner, while the younger stayed. No way will you talk me into doing anything remotely hands-on involving kids, except in the Sunday School context.

Maybe.