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Yesterday morning, my husband woke up to a grim reality. Not only did he face the  possibility of a conservative State government, but he also had to deal with the memory of FatherOfCrankyPants and I singing karaoke the night before. In his mind, it was hard to know which was worse.

“Perhaps the new government will do something about the karaoke problem in this area!” he said, trying to look at the brighter side of things. “The Brumby government had eleven years to fix karaoke but they did nothing. Nothing!”

“Huh! To think that our rendition of ‘I Will Survive’ might have been avoided with a more robust policy making process at a state level,” I replied, shaking my head.

Still, we’d had ourselves a great party. A chance meeting on the street had led to us inviting the CrankyPants family over for an afternoon barbeque. And then, when Mistress M had rung, scratching around for something to do on a wet Saturday afternoon, the party was complete.

I must admit that I’d had a few misgivings about having nine children trapped in our tiny house by the rain, imagining they’d be bouncing off the walls like silly putty. But the stars must have been in alignment for us because the kids quickly broke into splinter groups and discovered the dress-ups, the Wii and the Lego, leaving the adults to eat, drink and make merry for six hours.

And merry we made. Even the Glügg came out – to a far more receptive audience than the night of my 40th, it must be said, but perhaps only because the vodka came out, too. Even Mistress M’s husband ‘The Sculptor’, a naturally temperate person, entered a world of “Yes, please!” once the vodka arrived.

And then I cracked open the karaoke on the Wii. Although, FatherOfCrankyPants was the only taker amongst the adults, I did notice that The Sculptor stood in the doorway in a nonchalant “I can turn and leave at any moment” kind of way but was singing along all the same. Yes, I saw his ‘karaoke potential’ in that moment and swore to bring out the vodka and the karaoke earlier next time to fully convert him to (what my husband calls) my “karaoke ways”.

[An aside: I later found out that The Mild-Mannered Lawyer was at that very moment in the city being forced to play charades with a group of senior insurance managers, wherein she found herself having to mime ‘Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’ to her husband’s boss. So it’s fair to say I’m not the only person who knows how to have a great time.]

At eleven, our guests left in a big walking bus (or, rather, “staggering bus”) outside our house and my husband turned to me.

“Now that,” he said. “That was my 40th.”

“What? Even though your birthday’s not until next June?” I asked.

“Well, if I was going to have a fortieth, that’s exactly what it’d be like,” he replied. “Maybe not with the karaoke, though.”

Yeah, right. As if he has any choice about that.