Garners Get-Together

We spent Sunday afternoon with the Garners, who very kindly allowed us to gatecrash their Family Get-Together before our trip back up to Sheffield.

Maia took a couple minutes to suss out the rest of the kids, and where she fit in - age, will and strength-wise.

Tom (5) and Charlotte (almost 3) are Tanya's two. Nishi (5) and Maia (2) are Mandy and Gustavo's oldest. Layla, Mandy and Gustavo's new baby, is only about 6 weeks old, and therefore wasn't included in Maia's sizing up exercise. She knew, if push came to shove, she could take her. The others, she wasn't so sure about.

It took her about 20 minutes to come up with a strategy. She would play with Charlotte and Maia, no problem. She would play with Tom and Nishi, unless Tom got boisterous, and then she would run as fast as she could to the nearest adult and seek protection. It seemed to work pretty well. Incidentally, the Other Maia and Maia got into a verbal tussle over Who Was Maia. We won.

The range of hair and skin colours on show made the group look like refugees from a Benetton advert. Nishi is the darkest skinned, with deep brown eyes and dark hair. Other Maia is lighter skinned but with the same curly, chocolatey hair. Tom is fair with auburn hair, Charlotte is olive toned with dark hair, and Maia is fair and honey blond. All we needed was a Swede and a Nigerian, and we would have sold loads of jumpers.

After a brief break for sausages, someone got out the paddling pool and garden hose. At the mere mention of water, they all stripped off, and within seconds were descended upon by Mothers Bearing Suncream. Benetton be banished - now they looked like a gang of multi-cultural wood nymphs, cavorting in the afternoon sunshine.

David made his play for Favourite Grown-up early on, with an energetic and very well received round of Spin Me Round...He would grab the nearest child by the arm and leg and spin them around in the air, all the while making pretty good airplane noises. As soon as one child was put down, to wobble off the dizziness, the rest would rush at him shouting 'Me next! Me next!'

Gareth's game of Hide and Seek was more popular with the adults then the kids. Not surprising, given that it was geared more towards getting the little 'uns to go somewhere and hide quietly while we could drink wine, but he was soon rumbled.

Maia was hugely reluctant to put her clothes back on when it was time to go. I only managed to get her dressed after she realised that she couldn't slide down the slide with a bare bottom, which meant our departure was delayed by 20 minutes while she fully exploited her new slidiness.

The trip back was pretty hot and sticky and she was a bit fractious (or perhaps I was. It had been a very Maia-intensive weekend.) As soon as we got home, we zoomed through bath in record breaking time and she zonked out as soon as her head touched the pillow. Lot of material for happy dreams this weekend.