– 11:46 am

Yesterday, we attended good friends Wez and Nic’s birthday party for their one-year-old Alfie. Hard to believe it’s been a year already. He’s massive now. I’ve watched him and his elder brother Stanley grow into the boys they are today, from infancy. It’s incredible how fast they grow. I always wondered if kids remember these parties as teens or adults. What’s their version of events? How would they retell it? I found this to be equally interesting and enlightening.

The party was full of toddlers running around, dipping or sliding in and out of either ball pit or tunnel; watchful parents screaming and yelling from the stands, spectating over the entire Olympic event. There were some jaw-dropping performances, some inconsolable losers and others who simply enjoyed the privilege of being allowed to participate. You could see it on their faces. It was a great atmosphere.

Also present, in almost an entire section of the stands, were the grandparents, in a world of their own. I imagine all they talked about was what it’s like to be that age and how things used to be. The past.

My interactions with people revolved around the miracle of being crutch-free just six or so weeks into a double open fracture leg break. Charlie was there as well. It’s always great to see him of course. We got to meet his girlfriend Victoria. To put it extremely harshly, he’d been sleazing around till now. Liza said she seemed nice. So I am thrilled for him.

I hadn’t seen Wez’s brother Dan in a while. The Browns seem to be losing a lot of weight, at least between Wez and Dan. The latter is training to be a fireman, said he had his fitness test coming up. He seemed psyched talking about running into burning buildings and rescuing “damsels in distress”. Frankly speaking, he looks the part.

Liza caught up with another blue-eyed couple, Bucket and Shell – not sure why we called him Bucket and come to think of it, I don’t know Bucket’s real name. It’s unsurprising though, there’s a lot of that going around. Shell is an NHS nurse and they just had their daughter. The spitting four-month-old was a joy to carry and calm the entire time. Apparently, this is a reflection of the parents. The babies just copy their moods.

They advised to “sleep when the baby sleeps, the both of ya. You’ll need it”. Interestingly, and I think I heard this from Marc as well, they said not to tiptoe around the house. “Carry on as usual, with the same amount of noise so the baby gets used to it. Otherwise, you’d get to a place where you’re hush-hushing each other all the time and you don’t want that”. They gave us great tips.

We left a couple of hours later to complete the second task of the day – do a dry run to the hospital to a 24/7 valet car park. The drive took about an hour and a half, with intermittent heavy traffic. We found the place easily enough. In fact, we’d parked at the entry before, on one of the hospital visits. My “leg doctor” is also within walking distance from it. We just didn’t know it was there but now we do. So that’s one less prep task to think about. An important one at that.

From there we walked to Chotto Matte in Marylebone to make our 7 pm reservation. The plates were delightful, the cassava wedges were very good, and the sauces exceptional. I love octopus in any state, and the padrón peppers were exquisite. It was a good day. Hope you enjoyed it.