As the week progressed things fell into place and once we had collected the mirror ball, bar tables with lights, hung the curtains to hide all the shed ‘stuff”, hung the purple tissue pom poms and tested the music it started to look as though a party really was about to happen.
My dear friend Anne arrived from Sydney to help and Saturday rolled along as the things on the To Do list were crossed off one by one. We had a lovely lunch sitting outside eating lovely tarts Anne bought from our favourite patisserie ‘Silo”. Then a shift in the cosmic universe happened at about 3pm and someone upstairs decided to throw us a few tests of strength.
My husband went to collect our son, who was helping build a down- hill bike track at Mt Stromlo. No response from his phone. Nowhere to be seen. At last he phoned and we heard that he thought he had broken his arm! OMG!!!!!!!!
So for my Husband and Son the day changed. Queanbeyan hospital – yes, he had broken his arm. Then Canberra Hospital – he needed to be operated on. Waiting, waiting and lots of pain.Back at party central we had many people about to arrive so it was build fire pit, set large fire, move the big bath tub for bottles and ice, buy ice, set up all the glasses for the bar, receive 2 strange phone calls which nearly made me flip, find out why the gas has not arrived when they promised to come as we had only 2% left and a tribe to cook for, help gas man as night began to fall, set out all the lumiere candle bags and jars, light all the candles and in between keep the ham cooking and being basted, turn on the slow cookers and start heating up all the casseroles, decorate all the canapé trays and assemble the canapés etc. etc. etc.
THANK GOD for two fairy godmothers. Dear Anne and Pauline. My saviours who just got in there and just started work. Keith and Nicolas who guided traffic and helped set up the slide projector. Keith for carving and carrying the enormous ham. Collin who worked out how to get into my husband’s laptop working and start the slide show – along with taking control of the fire and sweeping up broken bottles. And Jo for her delicious sausage rolls – they really were delicious.
7pm came and beautiful girls and boys began to arrive dressed for a cocktail party. The music began and the buzz began to increase.
9pm came along and the operation on my son’s arm was cancelled for the night so my husband came home to our daughter’s delight and after a little sit down to catch his breath he was able to make a lovely and wonderful speech. 11.30pm came along and Anne drove me through the night to the hospital to see our mountain biker, give him a hug and kiss and deliver chicken casserole, ham and cake. Then it was back home to the party which stretched way into the night.
As I sit here Monday morning, I look outside on a very wet, windy and cold morning. Last night – Sunday, we had a huge rain storm. So I am so grateful for wonderful friends, that my son is safe and it was his arm not something worse, for my husband who looked after him and then gave a beautiful speech and stayed up to look after things when I couldn’t stay awake any longer, to the fact that the party looked very beautiful and everyone seemed to have a great time and our daughter was so happy. AND, that it was a beautiful night where people could sit around a fire and watch the moon rise and NOT last night when it absolutely poured with rain.
As I said to our daughter on Saturday afternoon, when our little world seemed to spinning out of control, just pretend that we are in some crazy funny beautiful Diane Keaton, Jack Nicolson, Woody Allen film. And it really was like that.
