Jelly good fellows

March, and springtime in general, is birthday time with the Reids. Both my brother, Kenny, and Mum have their birthdays in March almost within the same week. As a result there have bee a few present buying expeditions recently and, in true Mad Hatter traditions, a few tea parties.
The first was Kenny's last week where Lynsey Ann, Dad, Mum, Ka and myself descended upon his new abode inadvertantly cancelling his five-a-sides for a family tea party gaining him another slagging from mates over the phone. Mum had been working hard through the day making one of her fantastic buffets complete with fish fingers and sticky pork kebabs all topped off with a birthday carrot cake and a couple of games of Fifa on the PS3. This was the first time I'd ever played a PS3 before so I got a little excited expecting it to be the opening of a whole new world. It turned out to just be another playstation with slightly clearer graphics but maybe that's my ignorance to the whole games console world showing. I've still got a mere PS2 and very rarely play it. I only ever owned about eight games for it and only completed three of them. Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers, (a belter) King Kong (okay, but the scorpians in the grass were right little b**tar*s) and The Sims (addictive... very addictive). Don't get me wrong these games and consoles are great for the finger muscles but not much else other than frustration and the swear box.
Unfortunately, I got beaten in both my Fifa matches but I blame the fact I was still coming to terms with the fact the joysticks (or controllers as Kenny corrected me) had no wire attached to the console. Amazing...
On Wednesday night it was Mum's turn and we trooped up to Chapelton with her various pressies. Unfortunately one of those pressies, thanks to Kenny, was the ever popular John Barrowman's latest album which Mum immediately placed into her CD player. Kenny said it was his most embarassing purchase since buying the Westlife album for Lynsey Ann a while back. Let's hope it wasn't the same shop assistant that served him. So as John started belting out a Barbara Streisand hit from the Cats musical I helped myself to doritos as we awaited a mexican meal from Dad, working feverishly in the kitchen. When he finally announced that dinner was served and that we could now move through to the dining room our feet barely touched the ground as John started Copacabanaing behind us.
For pudding Dad had made some trademark fruit filled jelly with ice cream, a true birthday dish of old. As far as I can remember Dad's jelly has been present at every birthday through the years. As traditional as the birthday cake itself or Aunt Linda's trifle at the Christmas buffet. The jelly was followed by the usual rundown of Happy Birthday. It's always sung with some embarassment these days in pretend bored, monotone voices, espeically now that most of us are 30 and over so I always try and urge the vocals up a bit, unembarrassed to sing happily and loudly and show my wholehearted best wishes for the birthday person in question. And why not? What's so embarrassing about singing Happy Birthday? And you've got to go on and sing 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow!" . Though that's not done so much these days. I remember going on and singing a loud 'Jolly Good Fellow' alone at an office birthday party once. Everyone stopped and looked at me as if I'd just stepped from a flying saucer. Of course, the birthday person in question was a woman but I didn't think people would mind the obvious inaccuracy. Perhaps my over eagerness was due to the E's in the jelly. E's being the food colourings of course. I didn't work with The Shamen.