In which I borrow some extra children to help prep Hannah's party

We're always up for a party, Hannah and I, but this year we are going to town on her birthday party. In part it's because she's 10, which feels significant. It's got a 0 at the end...first number in  double figures and all that. A decade of life, a decade of being a mother for me. Yes, this one felt like a big deal. Also, as a rabid Harry Potter fan myself, I am so happy she is finally reading and loving the books. So could she have a Harry Potter party?? Of course.

It needs more planning than our usual "pitch a tent in the woods" style party. We're going to have the children arrive and visit Ollivanders where they will chose a wand. We are making the wands today, which is why I thought it would be fun to invite some of Hannah's friends over to help.  P and E arrived about 11 and we headed out to the woods first to collect twigs for making broomsticks for Quidditch. Not entirely sure how Quidditch is going to work exactly, but will involve hula hoops on sticks for goals, a quaffle for scoring, bludgers which have the effect of stopping you for 5 seconds when they hit you and a tiny golden snitch which will be hidden in the area somewhere!

Wand-making started after lunch. We are using these instructions to make them. Some of them didn;t turn out too well....and I can't get the glue gun to work properly and we ran out of other glue and had to go to Morrisons to buy more, but the kids had fun anyway!

We're also going to have a  Defence Against the Dark Arts ice-breaker. We always do something along those lines because the nature of Hannah's social life means that none  of her friends know more than 3 or 4 of the others. Well, except Lucia because she has been to so many parties, does some of the same activities and often comes to family events so possibly she knows everyone! This DADA ice-breaker is going to consist of introducing yourself then casting a hex or jinx at someone else in the circle, calling their name to make it clear who is being hexed. The person hexed has to perform an appropriate action and then hex someone else.

Then Potions class with one or two things to mix up and some strange ingredients in jars.

After Quidditch, we'll finish with the End of Term Feast. Then I will go home and collapse.