Wet and Wonky Birthday Fun Times

It's uncertain who it was who thought of the idea of a joint birthday celebration type thingy at Wet'N'Wild for our Suite of Splashing Sproglets but they were born within weeks if not days of one another, and Wet'N'Wild had been a shared experience for most of us before, so the idea - so the consensus goes - must have sprung unbidden from the group consciousness, man, or something.

Originally there were no hangers-on, and ultimately there were no hangers-on for the Gs at least because of various reasons, which resulted in my face being liberally splattered with figurative egg, for the day in question as it turned out clashed with the Hands on Arse Festival at school, which ruled out the Bs, and when I requested the ladies change the day P's sister-in-law had, it turned out she had (reportedly) precociously booked flights from Sydney just to attend our water-based celebration. Which scotched the Bs. Then Hannah decide most unprofessionally to contract tonsilitis, ruling her out too, scotching the Js.

So no Eloise-friends, but Lyra, Georgia and Harlow with six parents and one aunt were in attendance, at roughly the same time, in roughly the same place, for roughly the same reason, sometimes all at the same time, and I have a photograph to prove it, see?

The sun had his hat on, so we felt obliged to have the same arguments we've been having these eight years about sunscreen, hats, and general sun-protection measures.

It was hot too, so perfect day to lounge on the inflatable tubes of Carypso Beach as the slow-flowing rotundoid river of relaxation took us through a Carribean-themed dreamscape along with a cross-section of the Australian public that could only be glanced at side-long, from young to old, from fat to thin, from male to female and everything in between.

Eloise and I had a race, just to spice things up a bit, and I cut my toe open on the light pebbledash floor, pushing on it too hard in my competitive urge to win at all costs. I did win, though, almost.

Lyra spent her day playing with inflatable tubes, water, sand, water, other kids, sand, wheels, and water. She declined the water-slide but was into the head-level tipping buckets.

There were enough grown-ups that with a small cadre of responsible mothers and fathers to provide childcare, the rest could go off and ride on big-people's rides, and even though we were nowhere near Calcutta the Black Hole beckoned, we rode the Sidewinder even though we were actually trying to escape from the heat, and we rode the Constrictor (I went backwards).

Other grown-ups reported that they went on the Tornado and the Kamikaze. We would all (I'm sure) liked to have gone on the frankly terrifying Aqualoop but it was unfortunately closed for "maintenance." Much to everyone's mock chagrin.

In between all of this there was sleep-time for at least but not actually more than one child, whose parents I'm sure are to be commended upon their most excellent mind-control techniques. And some quiet play-time in the general surrounds of our sandy retreat.

Nicole had mysteriously agreed to make a cake, so in the spirit of outdoors birthdays around the world, we attempted to light candles, and failed, then ate it. Then, in the spirit of Newmarket, we sang Happy Birthday, tunelessly. Actually I sang it to the tune of Grand Old Duke of York. I'm not sure anyone noticed.

The Harlow contingent had a date with an airport and had to leave early leaving the rest of us to ride our little hearts out into the twilight, and then, as per usual, be complete laggards in returning to our base camp to retrieve our stuff after the park had closed.