One of my favourite birthdays to recall is my seventh birthday. This one was in Canada and Grandparents and their kids and their kid’s kids were there as well. This birthday was an outside picnic. It was bit different from my other birthdays, because this time my Aunty Dorothy made the cake.

When she revealed it for the first time, she admitted disappointedly that she hadn’t got the time to decorate it.

It was a cake in the shape of a castle, and was wrapped in white fondant. She was disappointed because at that moment it was plain white. But I was overjoyed, because Aunty Dorothy let us decorate it instead. It was like an unplanned activity that I loved. She got out the fondant and my cousins helped out too making it look beautiful. I remember this part very well.

We also decided to play some games. We ran around outdoors racing each other. Then I came up with the crazy idea of doing the whole race in somersaults instead. Well, it could have been someone else’s idea. I think it was mine. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

I don’t think I’d particularly like that now but when you are seven, the more somersaults the better. I was very dizzy at the end (if you hadn’t already guessed).

Uncle Matt and Uncle Dan bounced me up down on their shoulders seven times - for my seventh birthday. I was nervous at first because adults are very tall. Then I got the hand of it and quite enjoyed it. I think it must be a Canadian thing. They called it “birthday bumps”. It is so much fun and I think they should have it practically everywhere. Although I think I might be a bit heavy now for them to bounce me in the air.

I don’t remember presents sadly. I suppose doing a few dozen somersaults is much more… memorable. I didn’t throw up though. I don’t really throw up. I haven’t thrown up in like two years.

Another thing I noticed around then was how my reading was improving. I was helping my Aunty Vangie with a parcel from the mail, what was inside was supposed to be a surprise. What I had discovered was that reading was taking a lot less effort, and around this time in my life, reading was transitioning from putting effort into recognising words and the words seeming to jump out at you. Actually, after a while this ability to read subconsciously becomes annoying and over the years I’ve learnt to keep my eyes averted from graffiti. In Russia, I learn to keep my eyes from reading T-shirts that had English words. To them basically anything written in English looked so cool. The problem with that was that sometimes they didn’t know what their T-shirts said. Good for them.

My Auntie carefully told me to not read the part of the parcel that said what it contained (they always do that so that people know what exactly it is they are sending across the world) so that it wouldn’t spoil the surprise. Quickly I told her that now it was hard not to read. She pressed a hand over the letters.

Another thing that a lot of you know is that my Grandparents have a book warehouse. This stirred my Mum to love reading which in turn made me a book worm. Sometimes I would help them stamp the prices onto books (my Aunty Vangie is an absolute machine at this task). Grandma wold even pay me pocket money!

Sometimes I wish we could visit Canada, or what life would be like it we had returned to Canada not Australia. Recently I have heard that Grandma and Grandpa are coming from Canada for a visit. I pray they could cope with the heat. I hope you would join me. Overall though I think they will have an excellent time here and maybe the heat will become less demanding.

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