You're only one once

So you might as well celebrate it with colour. The table top and the wall paint were, admittedly, a lucky break (if you choose to see it that way)

He gathered his friends. We blew up balloons, drank tea, ate snacks and cake and more cake, swapped stories. We made a circle of friendship around a circle of stones. His father told us it was a thank you to all those who had helped him and them through this first year. His mother and aunties read poems, including this one, which made my eyes itch. His mother taught us to sing together: 'I know this love will carry me' - just weaving around those words, like a round, not the longer song from which they are the chorus

Then we brought this out and sang the inevitable and lit and extinguished a candle. Then we pulled it to pieces and ate it, and more cake. We wrote wishes on golden pennies and put them in a wishing well. We blew soap bubbles for joy

 Satisfied with his day, he took a nap and we dispersed, knowing that love will carry him