Matty's Birthday Part 1 - Where's nana!

England in summer. Tarpaulins being scraped hastily across Wimbledon courts, the charred ashen smell as over optimistic men cremate sausages in their gardens, the squeal of noise akin to a jet landing as several million children (and that’s just in Old Stratford) break up for holidays, and of course , in the middle, Matty’s birthday.

These last few weeks barely a weekend seems to have gone by without kiddies’ birthday parties that make the Henley Regatta look like a sideshow. Everyone seems to have children in July. I don’t know whether there is any significance in this, although I guess there is nothing much on the TV in November and it is cold.

Matty’s birthday on the 12th is right in the middle of the month, and as this is the height of summer, you can expect good weather: unless you live in England of course when you can’t. It really is anyone’s guess, particularly the weather men. Take this 10th July vignette from Radio 2, “today the weather will be cloudy with a south-westerly wind, cool with some sun but a chance of showers later.” So that’s blizzards ruled out then. We thought about the party organised for his little friends and wondered what the 12th would be like.

Matty woke early, seeming to sense that something was up, and we found ourselves downstairs, my parents included, at about 6.30, unwrapping presents. We scored an early hit with the electric train for his brio train set which occupied a couple of hours as he found that the train also worked on his new car garage, the kitchen floor and his fathers face.

Matty was impressed by the balloons that his mother had put up the night before (yup, useless at that kind of thing) and liked all his presents. However fatigue set eventually and he retired for a well earned power nap before the partying started, leaving us to get the food and entertainment organised. At least that was the plan. Then we lost his Nan.

Yes I know. You shouldn’t let them out on their own at that age, but these pensioners can be so stubborn. With the help of Ula and Alison, mum had arranged some beauty treatments in Olney for 11am and despite offers, insisted she could get their all by herself. Olney is about 30 minutes away and I drew mum a map of how to get there through that Mecca of roundabouts, Milton Keynes. We were sure she would be ok, not only did she have her mobile with her, but she had remembered to turn it on as well. She left slightly later than intended at 10.30, but I thought she would be at most 5 minutes late.

At 11.15 the salon called to ask if she was coming, I assured them she was and though a little concerned thought she had just had trouble parking. I called them back at 11.30 to check. No sign. Nor at 11.50 am. At this point we were getting worried. Either she had had an accident, broken down somewhere, or was on the M6 north of Birmingham heading for Carlisle, but she definitely couldn’t have taken 80 minutes to get to Olney. I decided to track her down. On the way there I couldn’t understand why she hadn’t called, perhaps her phone was dead? Then I had a thought….wait a minute... what if there are two salons in Olney…what if she was in the wrong one?

I got to Olney without incident or indeed coming across stranded Sexagenarians in Mondeos with a dodgy phone and sure enough found my dear mother patiently drying her nails - in the wrong salon. They had taken her in without a booking sure that it was there mistake. Interestingly though both Alison and Ula thought that this was the place they had booked! We still don’t know where the other place was.