birthday

pink-n-blu I, originally uploaded by various brennemans.

I spent a perfect afternoon helping set up and photograph a "high tea" party for my daughter's best friend, Lucy. I made the pastel pom-poms to string from the rafters, Lucy's mum laid out her grandmother's linen and pulled out her pretty vintage china cups. She picks these up in Tasmania and carts them back every time she visits. We share a love of these, so I am often the lucky recipient of a vintage spoon or china saucer.

Whilst we made party preparations, the girls played beauty salons, or at least I'd like to think they were playing.

Along the window sill sat every manner of faux make-up a ten year old could ask for. Lucy the birthday girl has left my daughter's school to attend a different school, but they still see each other most weekends as she lives five minutes away. The other girls hadn't seen Lucy since last year, they bonded again over lip gloss, pigtails and braids. There was a lot of OMG being said and not a lot of noticing how much make up they were piling on.

I remember at this age you don't admit to thinking a boy is cute to your friends just yet. They proclaimed their shared dislike for Justin Bieber, thank God. Surely they have better taste, but for who I wonder. I think I was witnessing that line in To Sir with love "from crayons to perfume." But this is another post.

Sarah and I agree to secretly loving Taylor Swift.

Once they had torn themselves away from Lucy's bedroom-turned-beauty-salon, eight little girls forgot they hadn't seen their beloved friend in ages it was just like old times. They even welcomed her two new friends like they'd already meet them before, one of them getting right in there with the girls the other staying a little back not saying much at all.

They all spent the afternoon basking in the autumn sun, sipping ginger and citrus punch served in vintage china cups, eating delectable strawberries and cream meringues, pretty-in-pink iced cakes with rosemary flowers, chocolate balls, chicken sandwiches with all the crusts cut off, and mini savoury pastries.

They passed the parcel, sing-starred till we could bare it no longer, and one-by-one they were gone and it was only Bea and Lucy and Eliza Lou on the trampoline. The sun was going down behind the houses casting the rooftops into silhouette forms. What a perfect end.