floors and birthday cakes

It's one-thirty on Saturday morning. There's a pavlova in the oven, nearly ready to come out. One birthday cake is sitting in mum's oven to keep the ants off it, and another birthday cake is sitting beside our oven, waiting for the oven to cool before I tuck it a way for the night. The dishwasher is on, but the bench is covered with dirty dishes. The rest of the house is tidy but filthy. Tomorrow I'll do some cleaning, make another cake and some chocolate crackles, and we'll be almost done. I'm sure I'll be screaming like a banshee at the last minute, yelling orders at anyone within earshot and trying to blow up balloons and brush my teeth at the same time. But it will be worth it.

I could have just flagged the idea of any party at all, given the circumstances. Anyone else with half a brain would have. We've been in this place three weeks today, and since Monday we've spent every hour we can scraping a vile sticky lining off the floor with the help of a wallpaper steamer. It's been one of those jobs that seems like it will never end. Last night I was up until 1am steaming and scraping the last of the disgusting stuff off the floor of the room which will eventually be our bedroom.

I've spent moments all week suppressing the panic that threatened to rise whenever I thought about twenty kids and a party, here. Right here on these floors which are almost completely covered with dust and mud. Right here where we are in the middle of playing musical bedrooms to try and find the rooms that are the least asthma-inducing, and where we're currently sleeping in two out of seven bedrooms, with the kids' clothes, books and toys in one room, and their beds in another!

But I'm not one to pass up a good opportunity for a party, and I couldn't imagine Greer turning five without one. It seemed a sensible idea at the time to combine Abigail's second birthday party with Greer's fifth, although I probably could have just had a quiet family afternoon tea for Abigail, and let Greer have the party all to herself, saving myself from having to make and ice two birthday cakes at once. Why do I do these things?

It wasn't so bad though, doing two cakes at once. I think it might have even cured me of a little birthday cake perfectionism. Now when I say "birthday cake perfectionism" I know what you are thinking. Let me get one thing straight. I am not talking about perfect birthday cakes in the way you are thinking perfect birthday cakes. Oh no! My birthday cakes don't look like the kind of cakes a true "birthday cake perfectionist" makes. But I know my inner perfectionist. She doesn't turn up that often but one of the things she turns up for is birthday cakes. I know because I had a moment when I couldn't find the cake recipe I always use, and went madly looking through several boxes to no avail. I know, because I had to catch my breath and tell myself some home truths when I couldn't find my favourite butter icing recipe and had to use another one, and it just wasn't right. On another night, I might have chucked out a whole batch of icing and started again. But not tonight. Tonight was not the night to be a perfectionist about anything.

So I decided, as I was being ok with things not being completely ok, that when it comes to birthday cakes, I've got the impressionist style down pat. Take Abi's cake for example. Hers is a "2" with light green butter icing, with chocolate finger biscuits arranged around the edges as a fence, and her favourite animal figurines on top. It kind of gives you the idea of a farmyard scene. Abi's not going to notice that the chocolate fingers are all broken at slightly different lengths, or that the butter icing has plenty of brown cake crumbs poking through and is solid, rather than fluffy. And then there's Greer's cake, a kind of whimsical garden with cats wandering through it. Ah yes, of course, you say, that's exactly what I would have imagined on a five year old's birthday cake! It's got spearmint lollies on toothpicks for trees, japanese crackers for a path, and pumpkin seeds for grass. And the icing was a quite lovely egg shell kind of blue, but since I iced it a couple of hours ago it has turned a shade reminiscent of old playdough, as Paddy so kindly pointed out. But the cats look like they are having a great time.

My mum was never into themed and fancy birthday cakes. I don't know whether it was just that she was carefully avoiding the pressure, or because she preferred a cake that was simple and good to eat, or because she genuinely didn't feel confident with those kind of things. I remember seeing birthday cake cookbooks at other people's houses, and gazing longingly at swimming pools made of jelly, and trains with carriages overflowing with sweets and chocolate. Then mum found a recipe for a hedgehog cake with chocolate buttons as spines and we were all delighted. We had "Harriet the Hedgehog" birthday cakes for years in a row, and never suffered birthday cake envy again.

It's funny the things that make the difference in a childhood. The things that still warm us on the inside when we remember them. All I can hope for is that some where in the craziness that tomorrow's party will be, Greer makes herself one of those memories. I think there's a good chance she will. And I'm pretty sure it won't be anything to do with my butter icing.