The party. Yeh, the party.

The party. Yeh, the party. Right.
Well, let’s start out by saying that I am still, technically at least, drunk. I can’t remember the last time I drank that much (and I’m struggling to remember this time, to be honest) but I do know this: the party was excellent.
It was a combined birthday party and housewarming for Charlie, at her home in Brighton. The only people I knew before I arrived were Charlie and her friend Marie (and Blini the cat), but during the course of the evening I was introduced to a huge number of people (most of whom I soon forgot the name of – I wish I could retain names!) that included Rich, James, Chris (nice haka), Steve (a blogger!), Angie and Phil – these people being the ones I spent most of the evening talking with. The weather was perfect (it was more of a gardenwarming than a housewarming), there was plenty of excellent food on the barbeque (though, bizarrely, hardly anyone ate anything before about midnight) and there were enormous quantities of wine and beer. I have no idea what time we called a halt (I know that I was fighting a losing battle with sleep by that stage – gone 4am I think), but the whole night consisted of great conversation, laughter, massage, toe sucking and – well, just about everything you could wish for at a good party.
Those who stayed over all surfaced (somewhat blearily) quite early today, and we all did a bit to help clear up. Then we sat around in the garden eating croissants and pain au chocolat and drinking coffee, and generally trying to bring the world back into focus.
I left around lunch time, and walked into the centre of Brighton (succeeding in not spending money in the shops – top result!) to meet up with Neil, Emma and Emma’s dad for lunch. This was followed by a stroll along the Esplanade in the very hot sun – there wasn’t even a breeze to take the edge off the heat. We sweltered along to the end of the Palace Pier, where Emma and her dad rode the rollercoaster (whilst Neil and I, wusses that we are, looked on). Then we retired to a beachside bar to watch the thronging (and bethonged in some cases) crowds – the beach was packed.
A top top weekend.