I went to three parties in one weekend.

Yep, I'm still a party animal. Only Cherub came close to matching me, he went to 2 of them. Climber and Fixit only managed one each. Wimps.

So there was Nell's big bash that I already told you about; here's Fixit and me looking merry.

Prior to that was Elda's famous Halloween party. See the beautiful home-made bat cape on Cherub? That was his birthday present from my friend Jenny. Cherub got to come this year. Not like last year. It was almost too scary for him but he hung in there (and off me), for the sake of being with the big kids and of course the lollies.

If you peer through the fog (there was a smoke machine for the party) you might see some spooky eats and the hostess herself, the lovely Elda. She loves going all out for Halloween.

Here you see the boys listening to Elda's spooky story. By this stage so hyped up on sugar, excitement and just general 7-year-old-boy-energy that it took nearly 10 minutes of shushing, berating, threatening and begging to get them to sit down and shut up. I did my famous whistle (I had to learn how to do it in Year 10 for a play, the old fingers in the mouth one, took me months of practice but it's a very useful skill at parties) to good effect. Shocked them into silence. But then the kids were so impressed they started making more noise asking me to do it again. I offered to teach it to Elda but she asserts that she is happy with her technique of alternating Screaming Banshee with Fish Wife.

We took them out trick-or-treating; Elda let all her neighbours know and had a list of consenting houses to approach. But the coups de grace was surely trick-or-treating the chocolate counter at the local supermarket. The boys were so excited at this. How many times had they stood longingly in front of that counter hoping their parents would relent? And now suddenly they found themselves just bellowing trick or treat and the goods were handed over.

The last event for the evening was the witchy pinata. Here's Climber having a jolly good whack at it.

Bloody hard work to bust. The boys all had 2 swipes each, then the adults all had a swing. We never had that moment when pinata broke and the whole kaboodle fell out. Instead, individual sweets would shoot out after several whacks - which were then immediately swamped by a pack of ravening boys all desperate to grab the single lolly. So Climber, being a reasonably gentle soul, ended up in tears at this point, unable to mix it with the mob and yet desperately wanting to dive and claim treasure. It was very late and large amounts of sugar were in his system by then. It breaks my heart when he melts down like that, because he is quite a stoic chap, not thrown to large fuss-making. Fortunately, once the thrill of the hunt was over, the other boys generously shared their spoils.

My third party was the 5th birthday of Astrid's middle child. I was so wrecked by then that we almost didn't make it. Astrid rang me, certain that I was just confused by the start of daylight saving. But no, I'd completely forgotten. Cherub was roused from his nap and we hurtled over to the Fairy Shop to join the little fairies.

Good grief, aren't little girls well-behaved? Sitting quietly while the soft-voiced fairy gave them quiet and lovely games to play. Frankly I was slightly shell-shocked. I kept waiting for them to start jumping around or at least for some swinging off the furniture but IT NEVER HAPPENED.

Nobody doing loud burps at the food table to general applause. No food thrown. Everyone sitting quietly waiting for their fairy lemonade or fairy bread. Weird.

Probably just as well the final party was like that, though.