This is one of my favourite pics of Mummy & the Monkey, taken on Lucia’s 1st birthday last summer, and quite fitting for this week’s Sticky Fingers Gallery prompt – Play Time.

We had a little BBQ celebration in our back yard, and by some strange stroke of luck the weather was not only gorgeous, but my sister, her family, and my cousin all happened to be in London on that weekend (from NZ and Australia respectively) so we could all get together for the first time in yonks. 

We were playing about in a blow-up car thingy that Daddy had bought her. It was way too big, and no matter how much we pumped it up it still looked all saggy, and sad looking, but she loved it! Then her cousins Kate and Luke jumped in too, and we all rolled about in what probably looked to all our neighbours like the world’s crappiest bouncy castle.

Of course Lucia had absolutely no idea what the fuss was all about, and spent most of the afternoon eating grass, but us grown-ups had a fab time drinking champagne all day, eating her cake, then letting off those tissue paper Chinese lanterns at night. 

One got stuck in the neighbour’s tree, and there were a few panicky moments when we thought we were about to set the whole back yard ablaze, but then it worked its way loose and drifted off into the heavens (or into another tree further down the road). 

The moral of that story is: Saggy blow-up cars equal great fun for all the family – but champagne & Chinese lanterns should never be mixed.