If anything was broken I'm sure it could be mended

[j4]

The Botley Badgerarium is now well and truly warmed (and even has a new badger!) - thanks to all who were there, i.e. (deep breath) aardvark179, barnacle, bellinghman, bellinghwoman, bluedevi, bopeepsheep, brrm, burkesworks, c1anger, covertmusic, ewtikins, hairyears, half_of_monty, i_ludicrous, imc, invisiblechoir, juggzy, lnr, monkeyhands, mooism, mzdt, nja, pseudomonas, qatsi, rejs, saffie1981, sesquipedality, sion_a, smallclanger, tkb, truecatachresis, uitlander, and (NOLJWTFBBQ???) Andy, Chris J, David H, Glyn, Henry, Lynsey, Mike S, Pablo, and Victoria H. (If I missed anybody from this list then I'm really sorry!)

Geek social fallacy #4 notwithstanding, nearly everybody seemed to get along just fine -- possibly because everybody turned out to already know everybody else from other places, or be the cousin of the landlord of somebody else. Even some of the people who didn't have LiveJournals knew people! How do they do it?

You could have been forgiven for thinking it was a 70s party, if you'd looked at my psychedelic minidress, or the not-actually-ironic-just-tasty party snacks (cocktail sausages, cheese and pineapple on sticks, cheese straws), or the lurid curtains in the living room, or the jerry-rigged disco lights in the corner of the dining room (made from the base of my fibre-optic Christmas tree, propped up at a precarious angle so that it caught addedentry's mirrorball). I can assure you it wasn't intentional; I guess it's just another facet (mirrored or otherwise) of the way our social circle is slowly coalescing into a recognisable Posy-Simmonds-caricatured demographic. I bet she wouldn't have included DUELLING BANJOESindie guitars, though. (covertmusic's acoustic version of "Blue Monday", with impromptu knee-drumming from a sofa-full of people, was particularly fine.)

Amazingly, there were relatively few casualties or even mishaps: nobody got ridiculously drunk (or if you did, you hid it well); none of our shamefully-wineglassless crockery got broken; and we ended up with a fridge full of champagne and only two items of lost property (mzdt, if you email me a snailmail address I'll post your pick back to you). The only breakage was, bizarrely, two of the bedposts on our bed; I say "bizarrely" because the only person who went in the bedroom except to dump coats and bags was smallclanger, who slept peacefully through most of the party, and almost certainly wouldn't have had the strength to wrench two decorative balls off a metal frame (bending the metal in two places). Still, I'm happy to blame poltergeists unless anybody wants to confess to anything interesting...?!

I didn't take any photos, so if anybody has any they want to share, do let me know.

Amazingly, the house is still tidier than it was before the party, leaving us with time and space on Sunday and Monday to entertain taimatsu, play computer games, start the jigsaw we were given for Christmas, make tasty meals out of leftovers, and contemplate actually beginning to catalogue the books. The flat looks unbelievably studenty (Dali print, check; rag rug, check; ethnic throws over cardboard boxes, check; amusing fridge magnets, check) but despite that -- or maybe because of that, as goodness knows I've never really grown out of wanting to put pop-star posters on my walls -- it really feels like home at last. Come and visit us!

Comments

[i-ludicrous.livejournal.com]

I don't remember it turning into the kind of party where bedposts get broken...

[taimatsu]

I have happily sorted all the beads into my boxes and the books onto the Work Shelf and am very pleased and perky. It was great to see you - you will have to come over to Reading sometime. :)

[brrm.livejournal.com]

Was a great party - sorry we were so fashionably late. I did dash back from Cambridge as quick as I could. :-)

Come and visit us!

Shan't till you come and visit us first! :-P

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not sure whether I'd be more daunted by counting the books or counting the badgers...

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

That was me, by the way. I forgot I wasn't logged in, due to the sudden noose-like tightening of our IT policy.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The offer to (start) cataloguing your library still stands - at least, if do you go with LibraryThing, because there are tricks there worth passing on, and it's definitely easier to do it with more than one person (at least one at the shelves and one at the keyboard, if not more). :D

I doubt smallclanger would have had the energy to do the bed thing (he was still struggling upright when we got there, and clinging tightly to saffie1981's tissue), although he may very well have the strength. Surprisingly strong when he wants to be, that one.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to sound like I was blaming smallclanger; I'm happy to write it off as Just One Of Life's Weird But Boring Mysteries. :-)

Re cataloguing, thanks for the offer, but I think we can probably manage with just the two of us -- and we'll be spending a lot of time dithering about which books are whose and which books go with what & deciding whether we're actually keeping all of them (I know, sacrilege, but there really are Just Too Many, especially if you count the 20 shelves full at O's parents' house and the three bookcases full at my parents' house...). Hope you're not offended!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't think you were blaming him; I was just pointing out that it's easy to underestimate his strength! Had he been awake and running around you or other guests may have been made more aware of this. ;-)

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry I couldn't make it, due to exhaustion. But I bet your house is super-warm now!

[j4.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you couldn't make it, too! Hope you got some rest instead. Our house is simply radiating heat, so do come over another time and put yr feet up in front of our fire (not a real fire). :)

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I thought I was ridiculously drunk. Sunday morning (actually afternoon) consisted of a good deal of "oh dear, I was banging on about that? And that?" Especially my non-sequiturs about the environment and middle-class guilt which only linked together in my own head.

Fantastic party, though. Hurrah for both of you.

[j4.livejournal.com]

You didn't seem drunk! Though maybe that's because I was drunk too... but I didn't have a hangover, really, which suggests I probably wasn't that drunk. Um.

Anyway. It was good to see you, & it would be good to see more of you! :)

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

You managed to link them together in my head, too; thank you for challenging me on glib assumptions (which were mainly rhetorical, but still).

Will see you for Patrick Wolf, I hope.

[kake]

I'm very sorry I missed it. I'd have liked to catch up with a good number of those people, and I'm sure I'd have liked meeting the rest.

[j4.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you couldn't make it, too! We will have to have more parties. Yes. :)

[nja.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's terribly good etiquette for the longest conversation you have with the hosts to be when you're saying goodbye. Perhaps next time I'm down I can see you two as well as everyone else!

[j4.livejournal.com]

It would be good to see you properly, yes! Come and visit! :)

[lnr]

It was indeed a lovely party, and nice to catch up with lots of people, even if we did rather arrive as a huge Cambridge clique :-) Thanks for inviting us!

[hoshuteki.livejournal.com]

A fridge of champagne! Huzzah! Have another party ;) Sorry I couldn't come, as miss_newham had a cold and ting, but I'd love to come some other time. I don't get out of London enough, and Oxford is so very near...