Dan was ecstatic at receiving their very own copy of The Brick (the original novel of Les Miserables) for their birthday from us, pleased with the $50 from Grandmoogi and Grandda, and suitably mystified by the presentation of a Mystery Travel Voucher to transact some business in Hobart (ie. the music store was shut yesterday because it was a public holiday, so they get to pick their own new guitar from Nannie and Pa). They headed up to town early with Daddy and will stop off for birthday breakfast and Daddy-enby bonding time at DS on the way up.

In response to that I offered to take Hugh with me to Huonville this morning to have Mama-son bonding time with breakfast/coffee at DS, although I will also drag him through the tip/op shops and the supermarket, lol. But then I remembered he’d missed most of yesterday working on the stuff he wanted to work on because he’d been up to town with Eric, so I offered to take him to the patisserie later in the week for just the mama-boy bonding and not the being-dragged-around-the-shops, and he thought that was a better idea.

Dan came home with a gorgeous new guitar and is absolutely thrilled. Eric took a lovely photo of them up by the shed serenading a random chicken, to put on FB, because why wouldn’t you?

I gave Hugh a book on beginner cake decorating and he hauled out all his cake decorating stuff, read the instruction book from the Betty Crocker kit, and worked out how everything fit together (there is a mysterious large syringe which doesn’t fit any of the nozzles). There was some plan afoot for decorating Dan’s birthday cake but Eric didn’t make enough icing so in the end they just opted for walnuts. There is now a plan to make cupcakes for decorating purposes tomorrow.

Earlier, Hugh helped me make the koftas for Dan’s birthday dinner – I prepped all the ingredients and gave it to him to mix into a dough and roll into the koftas while I made mine. He is a useful small boy in the kitchen these days!