On Tuesday, Little Seymour Number Two had a birthday. An eleventh birthday. Another birthday. In The Shed.
Luckily, her birthday was a school day. So, instead of hanging out here, amongst the spiders and the clutter, she was able to go to school to be celebrated, sung to and made a bit of a fuss of, wearing her upcycled badge that read “I’m 9+2”, in the spirit of waste reduction.
Now, as Number One is currently on the continent, having fun, Number Two asked if she could have a friend to sleep over. After all, there was a spare mattress on The Shelf. I thought about it for a while, and agreed to the plan; this particular friend knows how The Seymours live, on their building site.
Typically, the weather was crap. Having avoided the worst of the rain at school pick-up, I arrived back at The Shed with three Seymours, the friend and Grandma, to a table full of cards and pressies. And hey presto! It started to look like a birthday after all.
Little Seymour Number Two sat upon the bed and opened her gifts, which included a summons to attend Hogwarts in September. It seems a shame that, at a time when her bedroom will finally be ready, it appears she must leave us Muggles and go off to study magic at a world-famous boarding school…
I will admit, though, that I do hope this is the last birthday “celebrated” in The Shed. Not because I don’t kind of love The Shed, but because certain things are tricky in here. For one – there is no mantel piece. A minor problem, most of the time. But when birthday cards arrive, THERE IS NOWHERE TO DISPLAY THEM! This is rather sad. Also, (and maybe it is just me, but) I cannot find the enthusiasm to decorate The Shed for a birthday, because there is just so much other stuff bedecking the joint already. Who needs streamers when you have garments gaily adorning the ceiling? We did blow up a few balloons, though, just to force in a bit of birthday spirit. Unfortunately, they were the phallic kind, and Mini Seymour decided to sit astride a pink one – half-naked, and proceed to lick it.
I won’t be buying those balloons again.
I tried to cook a birthday tea in The Shed – Toad in the Hole, it was. Well, one does not expect to have to consider evacuating the building because this was one of the days that the oven decides to suffocate us all on a whim – ON A BIRTHDAY! The smoke alarms were going, the windows were flung open and promptly nearly stolen off their hinges by naughty Storm Gareth.
The Toad in the Hole was rather good – thanks to Grandma E, and there were cakes galore for pudding. Almost by way of making up for the weather and The Shed and the building site and everything, there were muffins and iced buns, cupcakes and carrot cake, Smartie sponge and biscuits, all washed down with a lovely glass of bright blue bubblegum fizz, that Grandma thought might be nice (!). The Seymours did not go hungry.
Unfortunately, and I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but our little friend decided, after tea, that she didn’t want to sleep over after all. Maybe it was the smoke, or perhaps it was the noise of the wind (I have been pleasantly surprised to wake up to a shed roof most mornings this week). Either way, Little Seymour Number Two didn’t get her birthday sleepover after all. But she was stoic. She enjoyed her day. She had some lovely presents and cards, which we shall keep safely until she is up in her room. For, surely, before too long, she may no longer have to be a Seymour That Lives on a Building Site. Maybe, when she is twelve, or thirteen, or fourteen, she might actually have a space to call her own, and a room worthy of sleepovers.
At which point, I suspect, in a curious twist of irony, she and her friends will opt to go and sleep in The Shed.
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