I picked up an old school friend from Salisbury, Lottie, and we drove together in my little red mini all the way to Joe’s. It's quite a long journey but gave us time to catch up and she filled me in on all her adventures and relationship mishaps. That girl has no shame! We arrived at Joe’s, miraculously, without getting lost - for the first time EVER! (Being able to use my iPhone as a SatNav is such a saviour, my sense of direction is appalling...)
We were greeted with a kitchen full of smiling faces, very large glasses of wine, and many entusiastic hugs for each other - I hadn't seen Jack for a year to the day so was so so good to se him again.
Joss and Joe (the now professional cooks after a month's cooking course at The Grange) cooked pork, dauphinois potatoes and yummy home grown veg for the meal, which we washed down with some more (pretty damn nice) wine. The dining room was all laid out so beautifully and everyone sat down to eat; parents, Amanda and Charlie’s family friends, all us rabble, the lot. Most of the conversation over supper was about Joe’s leg and all the operations he’s had, poor boy. So good to see him back on his feet now, despite all the bandages he’s wrapped in…! I was ashamedly pretty disappointed when I arrived and he was actually walking, I was ready to play hospitals… but no.
We then all moved into the drawing room and New Year came around pretty fast - there was mass panic for a while as we only managed to get the telly working 43 seconds before the fireworks began…! I took so many close-up photos of the fireworks, it looks like I was actually there:
Celebrations carried on long into the night and everyone was very merry and happy to be together again. Most people had a serious case of ‘Red Wine Teeth’ but it was great to have us all together again and a massive blow-out was just what I needed after trudging through my 2500 word essay and two portfolios all holiday. By 6am things had got seriously weird and I hardly slept that night, meaning that I spent most of the next day curled up in the spare room’s huge double bed, much to everyone’s annoyance as I missed some of the clearing up 'fun'. Natalia, who's one of those really irritatingly beautiful bi-lingual Spanish goddesses, told us about some weird Spanish tradition about stuffing 12 grapes into your mouth when it turns midnight, however this just ended up in obsessive grape eating throughout the entire night. Here’s a photo of mine and Lottie’s ‘New Year Grapes’:
On New Years Day Amanda and Charlie escaped the mad-house to visit a friend, and before they left, Amanda drilled me (apparently Joe told her I was the responsible one!? Paha WHAT!?) about all the food she wanted eaten and what we were and were NOT allowed to use/drink/eat/break/dress up in. We all crashed together on the sofa for the majority of the day, but things got going again and we were in for another night of ridiculous antics...
The next day (this is the 2nd Janurary now...!) around 40 more people arrived in the evening and 'Joe's Overdue Party' began. It was so good to see people like the twins and Tonni again, I haven't seen them in ages. Everyone looked great in their fancy dress - the theme was 'You are what you drink' and this meant that you had to dress up as a native of the country of which the alcohol you were drinking came from. For example, if you decided to bring a bottle of Tequila, then you dressed as a Mexican. This prompted some very weird costumes and some pretty experimental cocktails...! Oli got the lazers, smoke machine and decks working (which the Ellingworth's just casually have amongst the antiques in their drawing room!?) and we partied hard until about 7am. How we had the energy still after two nights, I'll never know.
We crammed 5 people into one bed that night, there were so many people that even Joe’s house couldn’t cater for everyone…! In the morning we all attempted to help tidy up and then Oli and I drove back to his and crashed in bed, only surfacing after 14 hours sleep.
I’ve finally mustered up the energy to drive home and my body is suffering severe exhaustion. My attention span is roughy -1 minutes and I have no strength to do anything. I thought I’d be back on form today after having a good night sleep and told myself I would come home and start some more work. But no. There is no chance of that happening…!
Bed time again now.
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