image: Mia pauses playing guitar for 'pass the parcel' while Tom opens a layer

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How did the day go?
Meabh and I had stayed up til about 5am the night before getting everything ready. We were really tired by the time we got to bed. Normally we are up first in the morning to get Luke up for School, but this morning he woke us. He was really excited about all the Art about the house and how different the whole place looked. He especially liked his mum's installation in what was our spare room. The first thing I heard (which woke me up) was Luke shouting "HEY! this looks amazing" and laughing a lot. That got me out of bed. I like it when he gets excited about thing. He's as bad as I am.
Meabh's Parents were the 1st to come and see all the stuff. They called in around 12pm. I like it when they call round, I get on with them both well. they both seemed to enjoy themselves. We had a coffee and caught up. Nobody really called in for a long while after until about 2pm when our Friend Anna Pinkerton came round. Anna and Meabh and I spent the rest of the day eating sweets and cake, drinking tea and watching loads of video's from our archive. It was great. We watched some old footage of A Neoist Apartment festival where some guy kept burning toast and trying to give it to passing strangers while the original Band Aid 'Feed the World' song played in the background. It was very funny. As the clock rounded three there was a knock at the door. It was Mia and her son Laim. They had brought some Birthday presents which was a great touch! As time passed on more people arrived including Julie Bacon, Hugh and Sinead O'Donnell, Thomas Bamford, Gerard McKeown and eventually Warren Bell. People spent time in different parts of the house. Julie and Mia were in the front room a lot, Anna, Tom, sinead and some others were in the back room watching video's quite a bit. Luke and his new found friend spent a lot of time running around playing with toy's upstairs. I think Meabh and I were glad everyone was entertained.

Now the house was more full we decided it was time to light the candles on the birthday cake. We opened Mia's present which turned out to be a bottle Of rose Cava, which was very Apt. Julie poured glasses for all the adults, while the kids had fruit juice. I brought in the Cake singing happy birthday in a kind of blah blah blah way. Other people joined in which I enjoyed. the kid's blew out the candles then we set about getting eating the cake. It was good fun.
After the Cake we got out the parcel's to play 'pass the parcel'. Mia grabbed a guitar to provide the music. We sent two parcel's on the go at once in two different directions. It was really good fun. I think Tom felt embarrassed because he always seemed to opening one of the presents. tom eventually one a Some play do but decided eventually to give it to someone under four feet high, which I think was kind of him.
Eventually as things wound down people began to leave. Gerard, Warren and Anna stayed for a while. I did all the dishes and Meabh made everyone tea. I think we were all a bit high on sugar form all the kids sweets. We decided to order some Chinese food and watch some 'Big Brother' on TV: Poetry is Banality intensified (no really).