Party 2 went off with a bang yesterday... In fact several. As it turns out sunny York days, sharp dead branches and balloons don't mix. However I enjoyed the party and (I hope) so did my guests. I will now try my best to re-cap the main events, cost and pros and cons of the party for you.
So I will start two days before the party when the cooking began. The party took place yesterday (Sunday) on my parents hobby farm 93.4km away (thanks google maps) in York Western Australia. Weeks of planning and organizing was now getting to the pointy end of the tree branch with the busiest part coming up. On Friday the day actually started quite badly. I went to the doctor thinking I had a simple sinus infection and hoping for a script and some advice to go and smell some Vicks. What I left with was a referral for a CT scan and the possibility of more surgery on my nose and sinuses. I felt crap. So I went home and did what always makes me feel better, I cooked. Cooking for me is something simple I can do to bring others enjoyment and thanks to Fleur's recipes, it always seems to hit the spot. The trip to the doctors also reminded me that although at times spending money on these parties can leave my budget tighter than Warwick Cappers shorts, there are more important things to life than mortgage payments and electricity bills (although I never pay these late!)
So anyway back to the cooking. Immediately after leaving the doctors I hit the shops and purchased most of the remaining ingredients, the others I left to get as fresh as possible the next day. I returned home, made a cup of green tea and donned my Harrods apron (thanks Rachel x). Already starting to feel better I then proceeded to make plum relish, chocolate biscuits, marble cakes, and the pastry for the jam tart. Having done as much as I could do that day for the party I went off for my CT scan.
Fast forward to Saturday morning post 2 Bacardi and cokes and a stuffed potato later...After a good hour at the gym and a coffee with the other Front Row Diva's I returned home to complete the cooking and pack the cars ready for the trip to York that night. First I cooked the potatoes for the potato salad, next the fried chicken and then it was a blur of lettuce leaves, raspberry jam and dirty dishes. At the end of it though I had all but the pork buns assembled, and the salads, but all the ingredients for these were individually washed, chopped and packaged in every single Tupperware and empty Chinese takeaway container I had. Finally the cars were packed complete with floral arm chair, several china tea sets and hand-made floral cushions. We (Gavin and I) set off for York at around 7pm and we arrived soon after 8pm.
We had a quick dinner at the pub and then settled in for the night on the bent sofa bed that sags in the middle with the really scratchy pillows in the lounge room. Its was about 10pm we found out country dust is a problem for Gavin...sneezes and sleep do not bind well. About 6am we gave up on sleep and just decided to get on with setting up for the party. We did really well getting all the furniture down into the paddock, and had an ingenious getting-over-the-fence-to-get-to-the-toilet-ladder-system all ready by about 9am. We had blown up the balloons we had brought with us the night before and set about attaching them to a tree. Now I don't know how Fleur got those balloons to the top of the tree in her book, perhaps she had a cherry picker, perhaps she had a jet pack - I don't know, but we had a ladder over 2m tall and that didn't even get us (and when I say us I mean Gavin) halfway up the tree. We did the best we could witht the height and got on with it. At first we were doing ok, only a couple of balloons were lost to that great big fair in the sky, but as the wind started to pick up, the balloons started getting snagged on branches. When re-enforcements arrived with Gavin's sister and boyfriend we were already fighting a losing battle. The rising heat and thinner balloons meant that they were bursting as quickly as we could put them up. So quickly we took a few photos and hoped for the best. Some (about 20) did last the whole day.
The first guests arrived around 11.30 and enjoyed a glass of Blackberry Lemonade (of which everyone raved about thank you Fleur), and more followed soon after. Just after 12 I had most guests, except for one car that suffered an unfortunate incident with projectile vomit (its ok it was a 7 month old baby) so we started serving food. At this point I have to thank my guests for putting up with the wind, 30 degree sun and spiders in the grass. We did all settle down though and have an enjoyable picnic lunch. Only one snake was spotted during a toilet trip and I have photographic evidence that the getting-over-the-fence-to-get-to-the-toilet-ladder-system worked. A little later on we moved the chairs and table into the shade and had some tea and biscuits. Around 3.30pm the picnic wound up, and the best guests in the whole world used their cars to help get the furniture back up to the house.
After my guests had departed I did spend the best part of the next 3 hours washing dishes, getting grass seeds out of picnic baskets and cleaning raspberry jam from every conceivable surface known to man, but it was all worth it. At 6.30pm tired, weary and a little burnt, Gavin I set off for home.
On the next blog I will include photos and a brief outline of the costs :-)
