Louis’ birthday

Louis turned 8 last Friday. There was lots of cake - two in fact, one for his birthday tea on the day (inspired by Gillian and Claire’s cakes) and one for his party.

Making the drum kit cake took most of the day. It then took most of the evening to clear up the mess. But it was worth it for the look on his face when he saw it.

For his party, we invited five of his ‘band mates’ to a recording session in our studio. We made them back stage passes and band badges and set them up with mics, keyboards, guitars and drums and let them play away to their hearts’ content. We recorded their music onto CD along with a few other tracks chosen by Louis for inspiration - he went for Deep Purple, the Foo Fighters, AC/DC and ELO I think.

The happy gaggle of 8-year olds plus our one five-year old crew member had a whale of a time. We had a drumming competition and Spence taught the guitarists some new chords. They ate hot dogs, pizzas and more wine gums than I thought was humanly possible.

When it came time for the party to end, none of them wanted to leave and they were all busy chatting about when their next 'band practice’ would be.

I love the innocence of their youth and their have-a-go attitude. I hope they don’t lose that as they grow up, but for now, anything is possible. They’re going to buy a band van and travel to gigs playing really loudly on the way, then they’re going to win a Battle of the Bands competition and become really famous. Good for them.

On balance, it was a pretty good party I think.