Fourth

Had a lovely, low-key Fourth with sovay  's hospitable extended family, including her cousins gaudior   and rushthatspeaks  , and their little Fox (aged 8 1/2 months) in a Delft* blue-and-white onesie, like an animated chocolate pot.  (They're too tall for a teapot.) spatch  , alas, had to work.  choco_frosh   very kindly gave me a lift to the festivities, which he adorned until he had to rush off to ring one of the bells for the 1812 Overture.  I've never asked who does the cannons.

Besides excellent company, there was a lavish repast:  lobster! along with the classic trinity of hamburgers, hot dogs, and potato salad.  There was Virgil's root beer (and other potations).  There was home-made—though not hand-cranked this year**—strawberry ice-cream.  (To every season, churn churn churn...)  spatch   and sovay  had made a perfectly cloudlike angel cake with sharp lemon curd and whipped cream.  Sublime!

Fox was having a perfectly amazing afternoon, meeting in swift succession their first spoonful of strawberry ice cream, their first slide whistle and first bongos, their three-year-old cousin's trampoline***, and their first (architectural) step, which they handled triumphantly, clambering both down and up

Nine

*Or maybe Royal Copenhagen.

**The replacement crank was still in transit.

***They can just about stand for a second or two without a handhold, before going boom, but they were eager to *J*U*M*P*.