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

[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). :)