Party Pandemonium by Sarah Clark

Children's parties aren't always a great success, despite weeks of planning. It's not at all uncommon for a small child to throw a big wobbly at his own party, having leapt excitedly out of bed at 5am and then overdosed on sugar all day long. I once went to a party where the birthday girl was so overwhelmed by the sight of so many presents ALL FOR HER, that she spent the entire time staring at them and refusing to play, completely oblivious to her poor mother's blushes.

Rather more damage was done at my nephew's trampoline party. All precautions had been taken - plenty of adults supervising and a safety net - and he still managed to break his own arm. This happened only a few weeks after his sister had leant over the cake at her party, and set fire to her fringe. But at least these parties had guests; I know of several mums who put the wrong date or time on the invitations, or forgot to state the venue or put an wrong RSVP phone number, and then wondered why nobody came.

This winter's snow made my son's birthday party one we'll never forget. After bowling and lunch, the 10 of us got into the cars and left at 1 o'clock. We didn't get home until after 7. As we set off, snow was falling in voluminous white blobs, the traffic was gridlocked and by 2 o'clock we had hardly moved. By 3 o'clock, my tyres were slipping on the ice and I was getting nervous. As it got dark we were still only halfway home and at the back of a long traffic queue on an unlit country road. The restless, rambunctious little boys in the back of the car were getting noisier by the minute: "when are we going to get there, I'm bored, I'm hungry", they bleated. We scooped up handfuls of snow to quench our thirst, but most of it got shoved down t-shirts and rubbed into faces. I let one of the wriggly little boys out for a wee, which he performed with great theatrical merriment, whilst the others pressed their faces up against the steamy windows and laughed like hyenas. As he got back into the car, another boy screeched: "I need a poo!" You can guess what happened next. Eventually we slowly slid into town, abandoned the cars and walked the last mile uphill. One by one, to the immense relief of their parents, we dropped off our tired little adventurers who thought this birthday party had been one great wheeze and continued throwing snowballs right to the very end.