Happy 5th Birthday Little Bird! Inside the garden party at Jools Oliver London home

Junior has been to a lot of birthday bashes over the years but none have quite topped the magical, balloon festooned garden party hosted by Jools Oliver and Mothercare this week to celebrate five years of their hugely popular Little Bird by Jools Oliver range.

Held at Jools and Jamie’s new North London residence, the coos were audible as guests trotted down flagstone steps, across a courtyard and out through a covered passageway into a glorious English country style garden strewn with hay bales, wooden tables crowded with vases of daisies, dahlias and delphiniums and gorgeous displays of the Little Bird Spring/Summer collection.

Also making an appearance were six favourite pieces from the Little Bird archive that have been re-commissioned to celebrate the label’s fifth anniversary, so if you’re yearning for those rainbow PJ’s in another size or wishing you’d bought more Happy T-shirts you’re in for a treat.

In between munching on deliciously retro sausage rolls, mini quiches and prawn vol-au-vents supplied by Jaimie’s restaurant Barbecoa we caught up with the lovely Jools who really does deserve her well-worn prefix.

In the spirit of five being the magic number we asked her to give us her top five tips for throwing a great kid’s party. And then it was back to the buffet for mini trifles and a large helping of birthday cake. Congratulations team Little Bird and here’s to many more years of your gorgeous, rainbow hued, life-cheering clothes.

5 Party Rules According to Jools

1. I’ve given up booking venues and experiences for the kids’ birthdays parties as it’s just too exhausting trying to co-ordinate everyone and it also ends up costing a fortune. I like to keep things traditional with a party at home where everyone can relax.
2. I never do party bags. They’re just full of stuff that ends up in the bin so I keep it really simple and send everyone home with a piece of cake and a balloon. Everyone always seems very happy with that.
3. Putting the kids’ food in little paper lunch boxes is always good. You can order the boxes on Amazon and then fill them with sandwiches, fruit and a drink before the party so that everything’s ready to go.
4. I always buy our birthday cakes from The Primrose Bakery. We lived near them for so long they’re like our family bakers and they just do such a brilliant job. They do great gluten free cakes which is a must as I have a lot of gluten intolerant guests to feed.
5. We’re not into loading up the kids with sweets and sugar as you’d expect - especially with Jaimie’s work - so we do lots of lovely fruit dishes. A great one is a fruit pizza where you slice a watermelon across into discs and decorate them with lots of other pieces of fruit like pineapple, grapes and strawberries. You can put them in pizza boxes and cut them into quarters. The kids always love that.