the rain it rainethed

That of course was last year...last thing last year. Round about ten to midnight I would guess was when we had the last lot of rain for the year. Quite a lot of rain!

So the NYE bonfire took quite a while to get going and the fireworks (magnificently handled by John, Dave and Tony) lasted a good while as the rain poured and dripped and gusted and when the bonfire did get going it went impressively in many directions at once with lots and lots of sparks and whooshing and crackling.

(Earlier in the day there was speculation about what would happen if said bonfire were moved further away from my little bay tree towards the area where the septic tank lives. I suspect that the new and wonderful association between two of my friends may be having a detrimental effect on both of them...the possibiblity of an exploding septic tank seemed to cause them quite irresponsible amounts of enjoyment)*

After we'd all got well and truly soaked and thrown a lot of glasses accidentally somewhere into the garden (nearly all rescued thanks to Andy) we came back in and relived the quiz results...quite heatedly in some cases.
The winning team nobly donated their prize back into the common bottle bank (that'll be handy for next year's prize) since it was felt that texting google to get some of the answers was cheating...Oh and looking up the capital of Rwanda in the atlas? Definitely cheating. A youthful team mostly, their enthiusiasm maybe carried them away. Though this isn't really a good enough excuse for Barney's sister who regrettably has the Bardsley tendency to cheat (noisily) at the smallest opportunity, especially if 'it's only a game' and is clearly a little bit too young at heart when it comes to only games.
That must be why she's such a brilliant writer...type Barney Bardsley into Amazon and learn more:) but don't buy 'London Theatreland' because she was cheated by the publishers on that one.

The party food must have been good because it vanished as if a swarm of locusts had disguised themselves as guests. The lamb bones were picked clean and there were about three grains of rice left. I did cook some more rice but somebody brought out the FOUR magnificent puddings made by Youngest and her partner. Vodka and raspberry jelly was favourite but the other three were wonderful too.

Extra happiness came in the form of Frangelita and HF whose appearance was nearly a surprise...there had been some discussion about a last minute decision to come but we didn't know for sure until we'd had a phone call about sleeping arrangements. A bed was available so they came:)
Possibly the best treat for me was that Thursday came, braving an assortment of complete strangers, looking gorgeous and stylish as always. I am so happy that we made the original meeting happen (in spite of all kinds of difficulties throwing themselves in our way) because although pleasant meetings are many, the chances of a real friendship developing from them are less. I spent a good deal of time saying to people 'thank you for coming' with different meanings and intent but a special thanks is due to Thursday because she's a special person.
It also made Frangelita very happy which is always good :)*

And this is our niece. She's a beautiful girl, even muffled against the elements :)
This morning I had the runs. This was a small price to pay for a truly brilliant NYE! and had the advantage that I probably didn't put on all the weight I deserved after stuffing myself all night on Barney's gorgeous food and drinking at least enough!

Happy New Year everyone. I hope yours was/will be as good as ours already has been :)


*Yes I did giggle too but that was just out of politeness.