Let them eat cake? Oh, go on then...

I know not to go to Tesco on a Saturday, but somehow the din of the great unwashed as they mill around in between rows of tat, bagged nappies and unseasonable fruit, like the pain of childbirth, gets forgotten.

So this morning I found myself amid the throngs. We had a good reason to be there, of course, otherwise we wouldn’t have been there. We’d have been somewhere else instead, somewhere more wholesome, somewhere without the clanging of tills as Tesco picks our pockets. What we needed was a birthday cake. The sort of sugar confection that blackens teeth and loosens fillings – and that’s before the packet is even opened. It is the only cake that will do for next Saturday’s 6th birthday party, although the cake for Hannah's real birthday the following Wednesday (like the Queen, she has two this year) has to be home made, she tells me.

We fought our way to the cake section, hitherto a place we have never before darkened, surprisingly, though, the soon to be six-year-old with the wobbly lower incisor knew exactly where to find it. We passed a bank of boxes of Pomegranates, clearly labelled ‘Mangoes’. We skirted hoards of oldies, clutching at single decker trolleys like zimmers. Why were they there on a Saturday when clearly so afflicted as not to work they could have gone to Tesco on a Wednesday say? They leaned painfully on their empty trolleys, moving at a funereal pace, pausing only to meet 'The Wife' at the end of each aisle, in the middle, blocking the way. 'The Wife' had her own zimmer-trolley too, empty save for a huge cream cake and foil pouches of Whiskas. We ploughed grimly on.

We reached the cake aisle, more or less intact, save for grumpy husband’s good temper, which, conveniently he had abandoned at home as soon as I had muttered the words ‘Tesco’, ‘cake’ and ‘Saturday’. He hung onto our trolley and thought longingly of his afternoon shift at work. We surveyed the ranks of cakes, Smarties cakes, Spongebob Squarepants cakes, In the Night Garden cakes, Boobies cakes...

“I’ll have that one,” Hannah ordered, Andy Pipkin-style, as I gritted my teeth, switched off the ‘parental control’ button and said: “Yes, dear, of course,” in my best Butlins Red Coated kind-not-shouty mummy voice. The cake is pure sugar, with saturated fat and artificial colours thrown in for good measure. It has a vivid pink My Little Pony on the top. It’s perfect.

Heady with the success of the cake, we forged on, pausing only to mop Rosie’s tears after she had been flattened by an obese salad shelf-stacker brandishing a box of Little Gems. We selected jelly, ice-cream, hula hoops, Pom Bear crisps and blackcurrant squash. We bought a banner which, hopefully, says HAPPY BIRTHDAY; it certainly says ‘HA’, but I can’t vouch for the rest. We bought streamers and I crossed my fingers that I can find the six candles left after Rosie’s fourth birthday in December. Then we left.

Now, of course, all I have to do is buy the fresh things the day before the party (and here I am guided by my ‘bible’ Annabel Karmel’s ‘Complete Party Planner’), pop a few presents into party bags, make a few rounds of sandwiches, wrap, wrap and wrap the Pass the Parcel parcel and gird my loins for an influx of little girls next Saturday. Valium, anyone…?