It’s not easy having a kid’s birthday party during lockdown

The dog attacks the homemade Peppa Pig cake, grandpa’s sink blocks and the dishwasher explodes in suds. Charlotte Cripps is relieved when the Zoom birthday party is finally over

(Illustration by Amara May)

I’ve been singing happy birthday to Liberty so often since coronavirus began that it’s completely taken the vroom out of the real thing. She’s two today and we’re on lockdown. It’s not much of a party – she can’t invite her friends and we have cancelled a trip to Peppa Pig World. Lola, who is four, understands what coronavirus is, but Liberty doesn’t. I’m hoping the fact that none of her friends turns up doesn’t reverberate with her for years to come.

I don’t want her growing up feeling rejected, unpopular even, or with a sense of abandonment as I did as a child. I have wrapped a few things – a dinosaur backpack, a toy lion and an Etch A Sketch – but once they are open, what else can we do?

Nanny Roseanna, trapped with us during lockdown, helps me set up the Zoom birthday party. Liberty wants “noodles, noodles, noodles” so Roseanna makes her snack from a Pot Noodle packet while I squirm in absolute horror at all the E numbers. Well if that’s what she wants, it’s her birthday!

My sister Rebecca is dropping off the birthday cake on our doorstep as she can’t come inside – it is meant to be Peppa Pig but from the WhatsApp photos it looks more like a bludgeoned-to-death dog’s face. She never liked Muggles – is she subconsciously airing a resentment? Family parties are never easy – even when it’s a virtual one.

There was that time when he plumbed in the toilet to the hot water and we all stood around the new en-suite bathroom to see the first flush – and steam came out

We blow up the balloons – I push the boat out and get a helium gas canister. Rebecca arrives and as she passes the cake through the window, Muggles gallops in and attacks the cake as my sister wails. I manage to salvage half of it and cut off the ravaged part with a knife to make it look neater. Rebecca drives home to Harlesden so we can start the online party.

I stick on the dishwasher and settle down with Lola and Liberty by the computer. My entire family begins to congregate online for the celebration – it’s chaos really. It’s hard to get a sense of connection as everybody is talking over each other... nothing new there then.

All we can see of my dad is the ceiling and the occasional TV listing he’s circled in the Radio Times as the phone bounces around. “Grandpa are you there?” we scream out while Liberty is blowing out the candles on the mauled cake. The next wobbly shot reveals him going up and down with what looks like plunging motions in the kitchen sink that is flooding.

Oh my god, what has happened? “It’s blocked. I can’t get the water out,” my dad says – the attention switching to a full-on family drama. “It needs the U bend taken off and unblocked?” I shout. But it soon looks far worse than that from the live footage I’m watching – is a pipe broken? “Turn the tap off!” shouts my brother Pete from Islington. Panic ensues and we can’t call a handyman. My 87-year-old dad is self-isolating.

The party comes to an abrupt end. My sister says she is sending over her boyfriend, Rupert; it’s safer than my dad’s handyman, Mr Ernie – also 87 – who used to be Emu’s chauffeur – who shouldn’t be out anyway.

My dad tells the family how I’m spraying his food with antibacterial spray, and that I’ve got ACDC

We start to reminisce about Mr Ernie's greatest hits. There was that time when he plumbed in the toilet to the hot water and we all stood around the new en-suite bathroom to see the first flush – and steam came out. Then there were the shelves he put up. He said to my dad: “Brian, they will be standing there in a thousand years.” A few minutes later they fell down.

“Look we have to manage this carefully!” I tell my family. “If Rupert goes over he must disinfect everything he touches.” Then my dad tells me I’ve got ACDC (he means OCD). He tells them how I’m spraying his food with antibacterial spray and changing my gloves every five minutes when I drop off supplies. But who can blame me? Or am I going backwards into obsessive behaviour as my family suggests? I am not the same person I was 21 years ago when I failed to show up to my own birthday while they waited for me eagerly.

We leave the Zoom meeting and I notice bubbles are erupting from the dishwasher. Oh shit! Did somebody put that glass of bubble mixture in it? I open the door and it’s like a bubble bath overflowing into the kitchen. It’s the most fun part of the day as Lola and Liberty scream “bubbles” and “it’s snowing” – and break into the Frozen song “Let it Go”, pretending to be Elsa and Anna. I clear up and we go to sit out in the garden – well, not on the grass as it’s shit infested – but there is a bit of patio.

Long gone are the days when Alex and I used to sit out here on a massive beanbag he brought over. We would sunbathe in each other’s arms for hours. He had disappeared again – for a month – and we had reconnected as if nothing had happened.

I didn’t try to hide how ecstatic I was when I bumped into him at the café on my road – he looked thinner but was obviously making a comeback. “Where are you living?” I said, with my heart racing as my whole world looked like a one big eternal sunny day. “Oh, just there,” he said, pointing to the other end of my road. What, my neighbour? The psychic is right, I cheered! There is hope.