The Uninvited

When I turned six my birthday happened to be on Melbourne Cup Day. The Mothership was a teacher at my school, so she threw a wee party for me at lunchtime. She invited all my mates to her classroom, where we pinned the tail on the donkey and scoffed down chips and fairy bread and a cake shaped like a witch from the ubiquitous Australian Women's Weekly Birthday Cake Cookbook. It had a purple icing frock and rode a liquorice broomstick.

I was a paranoid, insecure little twit even in kindergarten. My teacher had organised a Cup Day Race for my class, involving cardboard cutout horsies and plastic hoops. I remember peering out Mum's classroom window with a feeling of great dread, watching the uninvited classmates galloping round on the asphalt playground. Did the people at my party really want to be there? Were they comparing and contrasting the level of entertainment in here with the action oustide? Were they cursing me behind their plastic cups of raspberry cordial? Did their Mums make them come since my Mum was a teacher? They say the Melbourne Cup is the race that stops a nation, so what right did I have to stop them stopping? Oh the trauma!

Luckily this only happens every seven years or so, so I don't have to compete with the Cup that often. It happened the day I was born, when I emerged slightly jaundiced, gingered and six-fingered. And it happened again today, but it doesn't matter since I'm Scotland and naebody here kens about the Melbourne Cup. Huzzah!

November 1, 2005 | Permalink | | Comments (23)

Comments

1 · Monkey said:

I suspect I sent an SMS to the wrong person today, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY, etc. etc. with much much love from me and the Mattay. And the kittens, should they have any inkling of the concept of birthdayat all. LOVE!

November 2, 2005 12:25 AM

2 · Nikki said:

I know you're just back and all, but I can't help but hope and wonder when you're gonna post about your experiences/thoughts on finally going hame, with husband to boot. I'm hanging out for some observations... almost feels as if by omission it wasn't so guid...

November 2, 2005 12:49 AM

3 · Rosemary Grace said:

Happy Birthday!

November 2, 2005 1:11 AM

4 · Dan said:

Happy Birthday!

(Eleven-fingered, surely?)

November 2, 2005 2:22 AM

5 · j @ rta said:

Happy birthday lovely lady!

November 2, 2005 2:36 AM

6 · Kirsten (born without toenails) said:

I have to ask - what is fairy bread? Contribute to my cultural education...

Ah, the Mothership is one of those noble mums who made elaborate cakes for b'days. (Our best ones were a fairy castle and - most ambitiously - a Loch Ness Monster.)

November 2, 2005 9:32 AM

7 · Steph said:

Hope you had a great day.

November 2, 2005 12:18 PM

8 · melt said:

ooh, i loved that book! i had the piano twice.

i was a nerd, and i suspect my mother didn't mind not trying a new one.

November 2, 2005 2:03 PM

9 · celine said:

belated happy birthday shauny!

November 2, 2005 2:35 PM

10 · Liga said:

ooh I got rather excited recently when I stumbled upon a whole stand full of Women's Weekly cookbooks in a rather fashionable cafe in *Belfast* - imagine my suprise!!

November 3, 2005 12:37 AM

11 · hasarder said:

Happy belated birthday! Or rather, being two days late, is it happy death anniversary for your 'extra' finger?
Not being in Melbourne, and not caring about horse races, I couldn't work out on Tuesday why so many girls were walking around my city in the afternoon wearing ridiculous hats and very ugly dresses. They dress up like they're going to the cup - and then sit in some trendy cafe and watch it on the telly.
In the local paper today they were trying to decide whether to re-name a street after the horse who won, have a commemorative coin in her honour, stuff her like phar lap or, at the suggestion of our premier, just automatically give her a seat in the upper house of parliment.
You're lucky being away from it all....

November 3, 2005 3:29 AM

12 · Sarfraz said:

Cumpleaños felices Shauna. I tried email but it bounced back like Jennifer Aniston to Vince Vaughn. Hope you tossed back a few single malts.

November 3, 2005 7:09 AM

13 · Donalda Bint said:

Well, there is nothing wrong with an extra finger, although you have it on the wrong hand. I'm afraid it has to be a left-hand extra finger for it to be best.

I have a question - if your visa was about to run out, doesn't that mean your sister's was too? We last heard about her via dress buying and forcing you tomake a wedding speech - is she back in Oz? Was she there for the Oz weddings, or did she just attend the UK ones? Hmm, what a nosey cow I am.

November 3, 2005 10:04 AM

14 · Nic said:

Happy Birthday Shauna! Hope you have nothing short of a brilliant day. Your presence on the net is the only thing I've ever won from Melbourne Cup. :D

November 3, 2005 12:19 PM

15 · polx (born with huge tail, but on the FRONT!) said:

Kirsten

fairy bread is, if my memory doen't fail me, slices of white bread and margerine with lashings of "hundreds and thousands" (sprinkles) on it to make the bread and the marge take on attractive colourfull sugary qualities.

I only know of it, never having seen or tasted it.

pol xx

November 3, 2005 1:38 PM

16 · Erica said:

Fairy bread is a delicious party treat. Several of my friends still serve it at birthday parties and gatherings (and we are all well into our 20s).

We had, and still have, that cake book. I have fond memories of the rollerskates, as well as the castle complete with icing covered ice cream cone turrets. It was such an exciting event, to look through that book the day before your birthday party and choose which cake you wanted your mother to lovingly craft for the next day's festivities.

November 3, 2005 2:54 PM

17 · SJ said:

Yay! Birthday! You rule! I love that my birthday is so close to yours. This is the best time of year, yo.

November 3, 2005 10:28 PM

18 · polx said:

true aussie cake

LAMINGTONS

hate coconut but if everyone elae loves em I'll make the bastarsds

November 3, 2005 11:20 PM

19 · Lizz said:

polx : i hate coconut too but i eat lamingtons (and rumballs too, which are also coated in the stuff)

Donalda Bint: Rhiannon got a proper job in London and got a working visa from that. (Entry: http://www.shauny.org/pussycat/2004/12/breaking_up_is_hard_to_do.php)