Pinning the tail on the donkey

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Grey javelins were hurled from a slate sky all day today, so I went to a party.

This was for Louisa’s fourth birthday, at Gracedale Road in 1986. For the purposes of this post I will only identify

the birthday girl herself;

Becky who took charge of games like pinning the tail on the donkey drawn by me;

Wolf;

and Sam and his friend James. Despite James’s efforts Sam still got in a peek at the camera.

Matthew’s portrait hangs on the wall behind his younger brother. Above and to the right of that picture, obscured by the balloons in the donkey game photograph, is the print snaffled by Alice.

Glee, bewilderment, tiredness, scuffed knees, excitement, and participation in happy games were all exhibited during an entrancing afternoon.

On the end of the roll were a few pictures of Louisa, tolerating her cousin, Danni, exploring her face with prodding fingers, as babies are wont to do.

This evening we dined on mushroom and onion omelette, chips, onion rings, bacon, and tomatoes. I finished the cabernet sauvignon.

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Imogen is planning games for her eighth birthday party. She has decided to amend the traditional game of ‘Pinning the tail on the donkey’ to ‘Pinning the nose on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

Grandpa’s services were required to help with the poster-sized drawing onto which the noses were to be fixed. On a faint outline, with the help of the occasional suggestion from Louisa about the application of acrylic paint, Imogen produced Rudolph. She then added the finishing touches of grass and sun. Louisa cut out a red nose for each participating child and drew a target circle on the stag’s head.

This afternoon, the rest of us visited the Nottingham Christmas Fair, leaving Errol to watch the rugby match between England and Fiji. This should show how seriously I take my Grandparent duties.

We passed a rather good busker on our approach to the market place.

This was the last opportunity we had to move freely. I took one or two photographs before abandoning the idea to a focus on withstanding the tsunami wave of humanity that surged around us. We managed to buy a few presents, but, after a while Jackie and I took refuge on a cold steel bench while Louisa, Jessica, and Imogen wandered around some more. Behind us, a noisy rapper whose needle was stuck, made me wish he would change pitches with the man featured above.

On our return to Haywood Road, I was forced to try out the Rudolph game. The idea is to keep all noses on the board until the last blindfolded attempt has been completed, then see whose is the nearest to the target. An improvement on the current Blu-tack method will be required.

This evening we all dined at Chung’s Chinese restaurant in Mapperley. Louisa, Jackie, and I drank Tsingtao; Errol, Carlsberg; and the children, fruit juices. The food and service were excellent, and we were wisely persuaded to reduce our original order. There was still a fair bit left over.

Tag: Pinning the tail on the donkey

Party Time

Pinning The Nose On Rudolph