“It’s my birthday dammit, I can do what I want”

Well, not my birthday, but Mitch’s – but the point holds good.
 
Having decided we were going to celebrate his birthday in style by cooking a fatted lamb and making him a carrot cake, and having foreseen that maybe one or two drinks might be had over the course of the evening, we all had a very good time. Well, I did, and that, frankly, is all that matters.
 
Ottawacker Jr’s arm is still sore, or rather his wrist is, but he’s trying not to mention it more than three or four times an hour, so you honestly tend to forget that he fell off his bike yesterday. I’m out of the doghouse for not picking up the phone when Mrs Ottawacker got the bus driver to call; I managed to cook the lamb well for once (I decided to purée the garlic and herbs rather than spending a week chopping them up, sliced up the boneless leg, and smothered the green ooze all over the insides: it worked rather well).
 
While it was marinating, DG and I went down to check out the tulip festival (dedicated to you, this blip, WhiskyFoxtrot) which, while it doesn’t actually start until next week, had the attraction of seeing the flowers while not being surrounded by 12,000 Korean tourists on Happy Korea coaches. The weather must be making the planning of a flower festival quite difficult.
 
Then Mitch arrived with great pomp and circumstance. We toasted his continued good health, compared paunches (his has shrunk commensurate to an increase in activity – but my hair is significantly better) and then spent an evening essentially taking the piss out of me. Mrs Ottawacker’s carrot cake was a big success – and the birthday boy demanded the sharing of a second piece, even though nobody really wanted it other than him and Ottawacker Jr.
 
“It’s my birthday dammit, I can do what I want,” he said, not really modelling his best attributes in his role as Ottawacker Jr’s godfather. “And so can Ottawacker Jr.” This, of course, is why Ottawacker Jr loves his godfather.
 
He left sometime before midnight, vowing to return the next morning with croissants and baguettes.