WE'VE had our first barbecue of the season and the new Harry Potter book is out this weekend; life would be pretty rosy if only it weren't for THE PARTY looming on the horizon.

When my daughter asked if she could have a Lord of the Rings bash for her 10th birthday I just didn't think quickly enough.

My mouth opened and I found myself saying: "That sounds like a great idea." I even got a bit carried away and made her an elf costume (grey silk with gold thread and beaded detail - how kitsch is that?).

What I should have said was: "Wouldn't you like to go to the UCI instead - or 10 pin bowling, like last year?"

I've noticed that as the years have gone by parties are becoming thinner on the ground. Wise parents have learned from their experiences.

When my son had his ninth birthday at a gym and it turned into a re-enactment of the Lord of the Flies we decided that enough was enough. Since then we've simply taken a couple of his friends to the cinema or to play crazy golf.

Girls, I keep reminding myself, are more civilised and, hopefully, will not take the theme of good versus evil too seriously, although I think our cats are in for an interesting afternoon.

Of course we've already had tantrums from the birthday girl who didn't like being told that the games she had devised were just too fiendishly complicated.

Then there was the trouble over the invitations, on which I had written "Please come dressed as a character from the book".

"There will be too many elves and not enough dwarves," shouted the petulant one, her face pink with indignation when she found out.

She's probably right because out of 18 guests only four are boys and it's unlikely that the girls will want to be anything other than elves.