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One of the problems of being the father of four daughters is that every now and then your house fills up with so many small girls that it becomes essentially unliveable. You feel like an albatross besieged by penguins.
My solution, when this happens, is to retreat behind my biggest camera, and hide there until they've all gone.
Anouk's eighth birthday produced a vintage crop of pictures taken in self-defence. Here are some of her friends......
The birthday season has returned to the AM household (not that it ever really goes away, now I come to think about it). First in line this year (strangely enough, she was also first last year) is daughter number three, who turned eight in a blaze of cake and nail polish.
Half a dozen of her friends came round, and so did both of her older sisters, which made for a raucus but jolly afternoon. It'll take me a couple of posts to record the day's contrasting activities, so why don't we start with the sisterly rough and tumble.
On the left: Sister rough. On the right: Sister tumble. In the middle, one very, very happy birthday girl.
My older daughters are both tall, and now it can be announced without shadow of doubt. One is taller than the other. Oldest sister has finally been overtaken by her younger sibling, who, if she keeps up current growth rates, will overtake me by Tuesday and will have a basketball scholarship to Virginia Tech by the weekend.
There is at least one constant in the endlessly shifting landscape of Allen-Mills family life. Zelie remains the smallest, and is likely to stay that way for some time. She is, after all, only four.
She was noble, sweet and brave. She enriched all our lives for 10 years. Anouk and Zélie grew up guarded and adored by Lulu. Delaney, Cleo and Kim were her favourite visitors; her best friend was Darwin.
We nearly lost her a few years back. Many who met her never noticed she only had three legs. She barked at postmen, then licked them. Last Thursday she lay down on her morning walk, and four days later she is dead.
I took this picture a few hours after her vet diagnosed a lethal cancer that mainly affects breeds related to German Shepherds/Alsatians.
We're a sad family tonight.
Anouk was very happy to inherit a new pair of pyjamas from her older sister.
Multi-coloured leopardskin with pink cuffs is apparently very à la mode.
Missing from these pages for far too long, Delaney returns shortly from her long exile at college in Boston. Her two small sisters (and one less small one) are very excited.
Last time she was here, DJ had cropped her hair and died it blonde. The betting has begun on the current look. Pink streaks ? Zebra mohawk ? Marine buzzcut ? One of the joys of having a student daughter in her late teens is that you're never quite sure what she might do next...
Sooner or later, we all knew that justice would prevail. Someone had to do time for the crime. America has to be protected from visiting 12-year-old French boys.
So we lined up the suspects at the local police station (aka the Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington DC) and watched for those telltale signs of guilt.
Yep, it was the grandmother. Just look at that line-up below. The rest of them are little angels compared to that deceptively sweet-looking little old lady who inflicted Romain on the poor, long-suffering Allen-Mills family.
Marie Deroche, j'accuse.
I suppose that in the interests of family harmony I shall have to pass a lenient sentence, and given that you are looking after my French bicycle and keeping us supplied with chocolate biscuits, there are mitigating circumstances.
So I'll let you off with a warning: next time you bring Romain to America, the handcuffs will be waiting.....
And so we bid au revoir to the cousin from across the water. We celebrated the end of Romain's American spring break by taking him to the Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington DC, where we admired the mediaeval torture instruments and wished we'd had some around when the kids got out of hand.
By most accounts, Romain had a lot of fun in America, and early reports suggest he wants to return. I'd better stock up on those instruments of torture, then....
PS There's one more very special photo in this series. Don't miss tomorrow's entry.
Ever wonder what FBI stands for ?
There were several theories in the Allen-Mills household. Romain insists that it's "French Boy Intelligent"....
We went drag-racing at the local car track. Romain, who may be France's greatest living expert on the internal combustion engine, had previously told me that he loved American "muscle cars". I think he had a good day.
Currently distracting me from the important business of a) completing my holiday posts and b) living a quiet and peaceful life is my French nephew, Romain. He arrived the other day from a distant galaxy, much to the horror of my female-dominated household, but I wish I could count him a reliable ally in the struggle for male survival.
Sadly at the age of 12 he has yet to learn certain subtleties of human behaviour (quietness, tranquillity, and that it's best not to belch in your uncle's ear if you want to reach your 13th birthday), and chaos tends to ensue whenever he sits too close to either Zelie or Anouk.
But I suppose there have been moments of fun interspersed with the frequent explosions. I took him to New York (see below) and to the drag races near Washington DC, and it was sweet to see the smile on the face of a French country boy having the all-American time of his life.
(Click on each photo for a close-up view of the visiting phenom)
The Statue of Liberty:
The skyscrapers:
The donuts:
The Harleys:
The cheeseburgers:
The smile:
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