i wish i could bottle the energy and vitality and general sunshine vibes swirling around our dining table tonight.

it's ten thirty o'clock, and we've been trawling the town in search of jazz all afternoon and now the atmosphere is buzzing with laughter and alibis and yelling and bluffing and insistence of i'm-not-the-resistance-and-he/she-is-cos-he/she-said-blah-blah-thirty-seconds-ago-and-actually-you're-looking-nervous etc.

uh huh, they're supercool twenties-year-olds but they're so happy to hang with our littlies and i'm so glad they still come over in their uni hols and bring extras and and eat up all our chippies and cake and drink up all our tea.

and now the kids are scheming who to trust on the dream team and making plans to storm the castle and break the windows and play electronic crickets to annoy everybody and spray paint the toilets with dry ice..... and the daddy and grandparents are in the lounge doing cryptic crosswords, and sting is walking on the moon.