Birthday givaway and the winner is...

As it's my birthday today, I was thinking back to the year of 'The Big Birthday'... you know the one, the one you have to celebrate. We thought a fancy dress party set in the 70’s would give everyone lots of scope with costumes and plenty of choice from hippies, glam rock or punk, and the theme could be carried through to the food, decorations, and even prizes.
So... it was to be platform shoes, cheese and pineapple on sticks, disco balls, and the search was on for Brut aftershave and Babycham for prizes.

  

My husband suggested I confront my weight issue head on and wear a humpty dumpty costume to the party and that he'd seen a fantastic outfit once! The sad thing is, for a few seconds I considered it until realising I’d have to wear white tights, wouldn't be able to sit down or dance. 'Don’t worry' he said, 'no one would want to dance with you dressed as an egg anyway!' Let me just say here that I love him dearly and his sense of humour, but for a few minutes I was beginning to consider where to bury him in the garden.





Mr man was away in Japan, probably gorging himself on sushi, then had to go to South Africa, so I was left to my own devices to plan everything. Losing weight was high on the agenda and working well, and I was able to tell him I'd lost 10lb, so he suggested I could now go as Demis Roussos instead of humpty dumpty, but comfort eating scuppered it, and that humpty dumpty suit was beginning to look like a pretty fine idea. 





As the party date approached I was up at 3 am one morning worrying as I'd told the caterer we no longer required her services by putting the phone down on her because she'd been so bossy! But a couple of days later I was able to email my friend who'd jokingly offered to help, 'hold the fish paste sandwiches! - have found fantastic caterer who's even bringing a barman and waitress, husband son and self have found great platform boots to wear.'

two lovely friends who are almost unrecognisable so won't mind being shown here

Preparations began in earnest - Ikea had some fantastic 70's looking paper napkins which, with some black fabric hid the bookcases, and the rest of the walls were covered in gold and silver streamers, and ebay provided a couple of mirrored disco balls which twirled from the ceiling on fishing line. But the best thing was a fantastic hired old juke box filled with all our favourite records which we could keep for the whole weekend. The house reverberated to the sounds of Motown, the clash and xxx as the three of us fought to press the buttons.   

We'd found a couple of bottles of Babycham with the idea of serving it as a joke but decided we'd better try it out first. So the three of us shared one small bottle between us with a small drop of brandy in... the next day the three of us had terrible headaches which we could not get rid of, so Babycham was off the menu! and we kept them as part of the prizes.

another two lovely friends who are almost unrecognisable so don't mind being shown here

Perhaps this friend's costume was a little too exiting, as we found out later he'd spent most of the evening trying to ward off the amorous advances of the gay waiter, escaping into the garden only to have the man follow him outside having totally mistaken his flight for an invite to join him.
    
My son spent the evening honing his paparazzi skills taking photos...

 Mr man wore a bright purple satin shirt, big medallion and a very ABC looking gold lame jacket, to go with his flares and platform boots, a little bit too Johnathan Ross I thought, especially as his hair was a bit long at the time. Our son, well, looking at the photos now, sorry son but you looked like that Orville the duck hand puppet with an afro. Me? I was shoehorned into a genuine Biba sequin top ( about which I was seriously considering not returning and lying that it had disappeared) velvet flares and platform boots.
It was a good night and we were surprised at the lengths to which friends joined into the spirit of the evening, perhaps a little too much. One sensible couple who'd cycled to the party left all smiles and waving  arms, but somewhere along the way her husband fell off of his bike. It was only after she arrived home that she realised he wasn't with her and retraced her ride to try and find him. 
That was frighteningly nine years ago, so not a big birthday today, but the sun's shining, and next year if I make it, will be an even bigger birthday, but I think I'll keep that one nice and quiet! 

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Ok, and the winner of the giveaway is, (chosen very expertly by random number generator mr dog - the 13 names were each given numbers which were written on pieces of paper randomly lined up on the floor and the first one he went to was the winner) - number 4 Mallory H, please email me by clicking on the 'contact the woolly dog' picture of letters on the right hand side of the blog with your full name and address!