'Oh yes - we're fine! Haven't been washed away yet...' I burbled on the phone to my mother-in-law who was concerned about the recent storms and our wellbeing. Did she have a premonition I ask myself? Because that very morning, while we were out shopping, we received a urgent message from S. the gist of which was 'Don't come home!' It turned out we had a 'threatening tree' looming over the house - literally swaying in the wind, and inching ever closer to the eastern side of the house over the bedrooms and bathrooms on the second floor.

This tree was a 22 metre high scribbly gum - a hefty specimen - and definitely not on our shortlist as a prospective house mate. The roots had already lifted up the boundary fence by a good few inches.

We decided to disobey S and make a mercy dash home - we had to resuce N's birthday cake and a few other essentials so we parked at the top of the driveway and I sat in the car with L. as P. bravely went inside. I kept my hand on the horn the whole time in case the tree decided to take a dive.

When he finally emerged, we tried turning the car around on the lawn as we didn't want to go close to the house. Not a good idea - 3 seconds later we were heavily bogged. The lawn was as soft as fudge after all the digging that S. has been doing and the rain and all. I called Mum to see if she could come and get us as we couldn't stay there. While we waited, P. trudged around in the mud and rain and eventually dug us out and used some old drain grates for traction - meanwhile L. watching shouting out 'Help, we're stuck in the mud' with great glee.

I called Mum on her mobile and told her to turn around. We squelched our way up the driveway in the mud-splattered car and carried ourselves and a trunk full of groceries to Mum's little house two suburbs over and piled in. S and her 3 kids joined us soon after.

We rang the SES every few hours to plead our case to save the house before the tree fell. They arrived just in time in the evening of the next day and S. watched in awe as our hero the tree man swung from a crane and leaped from branch to branch, cutting branches and so streamlining the tree and leaving only the trunk which they then removed in sections. The SES boss told S. it was very likely that our scribbly gum would be handed over to his sculptor friend who was working on some garden totems for Bob Hawke - fancy that eh?!

N.'s birthday cake (which I'd made with loving care) somehow survived the near disaster and she had a fun-filled party at Lollipops - this one is a number 6 cake with an underwater sea theme... which happily matched the decor in the party room we hired! The only 'hiccup' was when L. tried to choke himself on some green apple licorice - luckily my reflexes were quick and I turned him upside down and knocked him smartly on the back. He just coughed it up calmly and then proceeded to ask for more cake.