Fairy Godmother was on acid

We went to Fairyland yesterday for the Smallest's 6th birthday. I'm always apprehensive about trying (and paying for) new birthday ventures, tending instead to go for the safety of McDonald's or Lollipops parties. In this case, rightly so - when we first got there, Fairy Godmother's helper (who looked remarkably like a ordinary old man) asked the girls to take off their shoes. This wasn't so weird, until he asked them to "sing a song, any song and I'll be back in a minute"... and wandered off, leaving seven little girls standing in the foyer with blank looks on their faces. That was the moment I stared thinking "oh god, here we go". He appeared again after a couple of minutes, went through a half-hearted session of Simon Says, then told them to sing ANOTHER song and vanished again.

We eventually got into the Fairy Room... I don't know what kept Fairy Godmother, but it soon became apparent that she was probably using this stalling-time to pop one last tab before she greeted the children, because she was off the planet. Grey hair in pigtails, an affected little laugh and comments like "I can't do all the fairy work darlings, I'll die because I'm old" had us grownups staring at each other in disbelief.

The fairy food was ok, if you didn't take into account what we were paying for this little shindig - lollies, popcorn, chippies, chocolate buttons, mallowpuffs with icing swizzled on top. This all got the little fairies amped up on sugar enough to have a little fairy dance - to the theme of the english-policeman TV show called "Heartbeat".

All the while, my ex-husband (Chief Pixie, according to Fairy Godmother) was grinding his teeth, shooting me hateful glares and whispering "this is YOUR fault". To which I smiled back serenely and told him at least he'd have something interesting to tell his workmates today.

On the plus side - the little girls loved it; Hannah kept staring at Fairy Godmother with a look of adoration one would reserve for a fanatical cult leader and her friends said they loved it. The Fairy Room was amazing - twinkly painted walls, plants with fairy lights strung through them all over the place and a little pond in the corner of the room.

We got the whole thing on video, so if any of our friends consider going to Fairyland, we can show them the footage and save them from the clutches of the Spazzed-out Fairy Godmother.