It's been a while. I finally feel like I can catch my breath.

There are some pictures of Daniel's birthday over on the right. You can see them painting and roofing a house, building a wall and demolishing it with a wrecking ball, having wheel-barrow rides, having birthday cake, and generally playing around in the garden.

Danny really, really, really enjoyed his party. The kids' parties have become something of a hobby for me - in lieu of a missed vocation, maybe. I enjoy the planning and set-up immensely. It is exhausting though. And not cheap, despite the fact that I never hire anything or anyone for the party. I get so many comments that I should go into party organising on a paid basis. One problem is that people underestimate the time and money a home-made party requires, and the possibility of making even a small amount of income seems remote. On the other hand, much of the time and expense comes from making it up as I go along, whereas if I were following a clear plan from the outset, it might be possible to save both time and money. I'd be quite keen to have a go at this. Not now though. I'll save my energies for my own kids for a few more years.

The house the kids painted and roofed was originally supposed to be a huge cardboard box, the sort that dishwashers and the like come in. Our kids have painted them several times before, only now that I needed one, I naturally couldn't get hold of one, despite going rummaging around the delivery yards of the big retailers.

Since I was kind of stuck on the Bob the Builder theme by then, I decided to put a house together out of masonite. I bought two sheets of thin masonite (each sheet about eight by four feet). On sheet was cut into three to make three walls of the house, the other sheet made up the fourth wall and the two parts of the roof. I drilled holes down each side of each wall, and laced the walls together at the corners. The two sides of the roof were put together in the same way, and the roof was held into an a-frame shape with more cord. I cut out doors and windows with a jigsaw, and I glued polystirene to the roof panels ready for the tiles to be 'nailed' on by the kids using plastic hammers and wooden golf tees.

Finding the materials for the house, and putting it together, and making the roof tiles took more time, money and mental anguish than they might have because:

• I didn't have time to shop around for the cheapest masonite. Quite possibly I could have found a cheaper dealer.
  
• I wasn't sure what size panels I needed for the roof, so I didn't get them cut by the shop and had to cut them myself later.
• I didn't actually have a jigsaw, so (ahem) we had to buy one. They are so much fun though, and it's sure to be very useful for other projects. I am falling in love with carpentry.
• I drilled the holes too small the first time around, and it was battle to thread the cord through. When I drilled the holes to lace the roof together, I made them bigger and it was much quicker.
• I didn't buy enough cord the first time and had to go back for more and they were sold out and I had to track some down elsewhere.
• I spent a while trying also to lace on doors and windows. This did not work as either they were laced tight when closed, and sagged when opened, or laced tight when closed and would not open. Duck tape didn't work either - it peeled off after a few hours. Eventually I ditched the idea of having openable doors and windows, and I don't think it mattered at all.
• I spent a while trying to use polystirene packing offcuts for the roof. Cutting the pieces up was fiddly and unsuccessful.
  
• In the end (Peter's suggestion) we bought polystirene sheets from an art shop and glued them on. This was much better.
  
• I definitely could have found cheaper polystirene though.
  
• We could not buy quite enough polystirene and had to glue thin sheets together in places.
• Craft glue sticks two sheets of polystirene together, and sticks polystirene to wood.
• I ran out of craft glue.
  
• Wood glue sticks polystirene to wood, but does not stick two sheets of polystirene together.
  
• I made the roof tiles by drawing pairs of tiles on pieces of stiff red paper, and cutting them out.
• After they were cut out I realised they needed outlining with black marker to make them show up when tiled together. I could have printed them out on the computer and not had to outline them manually.

There are probably more. I would love to reproduce this party and see how quickly and cheaply I could achieve the same result. One day maybe.