Happy Birthday and All That Read Online Free PDF Page A

gingerbread ontothe unbreakable, pale green, unique-to-church-halls crockery. It was spawned by the damp cupboards, made to appear magically by the conjunction of the ‘How To Use This Water Heater’ notice, with the never-quite-dry tea towels and the ‘Please Leave This Kitchen As You Would Like To Find It. Thank you - Parish Office’ sign.
    There were healthy snacks for the children, curved slices of apple that the Parousellis called Apple Rainbows, saltless breadsticks and mini rice-cakes. Posy couldn’t help thinking that the children could do with something that had a few calories, but most of the mums gave them their cake anyway.
    She sat behind the table with the register and the empty Flora Light tub for people’s pound coins. She couldn’t remember the names of all the children, let alone their parents who were mostly known only as Ashleigh’s Mum, Dylan’s Mum, Darcey’s Mum … If you flicked back through the years of the toddler group register you saw the rise and fall of children’s names. In the mid nineties there had been seventeen Jacks. Then there was the year when people had thought they were being so original with Callum, and now the names fought on the page in a competition for the most unlikely. Welcome Jerome, Jessamy, Bradley and Bramley (these were apple-cheeked twins) and Cain, who fortunately wasn’t a twin, but had a baby sister called Scarlett (Scarletts were now two a penny). There were surnames for girls’ first names and very many jewels. Sapphire was still a rarity, but Rubies and even Diamonds were now common. There was a child who Posy had thought was called Leah (relatively sensible) until he took down his trousers and peed on the slide, and Posy realised that he must be called Lear. At a nearby toddler group was a Chloe who was, for reasons best known to her parents, a ‘Khloey’, and babies with apostrophes in their names (a Clay’d and a Hayd’n had been the trailblazers). Posy alwayssniggered when she read Cnut - they must have been joking, surely - and then she remembered that she was called Posy.
    She glanced up to see that Tom was still driving the tractor up and down, up and down, and Isobel was still asleep on the stage. She could see steam from the urn rising in the kitchen. The chairs around the walls of the hall were taken up by coats and changing bags, mums and child-minders, two dads all alone. She could only hear snatches of other people’s conversations through the swimming pool echoes of sound.
    â€˜But she does say the silliest things. At that party she said, “Deeko is my favourite brand of napkins.” I mean who has a favourite brand of paper serviettes?’ Were they talking about her? Deeko was her favourite brand of napkins, but she couldn’t remember telling anyone, least of all those two.
    â€˜I don’t think she’s very practical. She always looks a bit, well, faraway.’
    â€˜Off with the fairies my mum used to say.’
    Wish I was, thought Posy, wish I was. She fingered the small disc of the Flower Fairy mirror in her pocket; it was the Poppy Fairy. She’d meant to put on some mascara and lipstick and had, as usual, forgotten. There had been a time when she’d not felt dressed if she went out without earrings and make-up. Now she didn’t even wear her own watch. Its battery had run out and she carried Frank’s in her pocket. It had some sort of cheap metal on the back that brought her out in a rash.
    â€˜Want some coffee?’ It was Caroline to the rescue. ‘I think you can desert your post.’ Posy hadn’t really been signing people in, they’d signed themselves in.
    â€˜So how’s life at the Parousellis?’ Caroline asked.
    â€˜Oh you know, same …’ said Posy. ‘Isobel slept through the night twice last week and James joined the Cubs but this weekhe wants to leave. Frank’s gained two pupils and