After finishing work on the Saturday at around five thirty I had some last minute shopping to do and then back to the apartment to help Rebecca get the lights up and make everything ready.

Around 8 I went back to '99's' to see if there were any people there to come along. I'd prearranged that if there were any 'early' people I'd meet them there. The bar itself was empty but waiting outside was one guy who was a friend of someone who'd been in the bar the night before. We went onto the party after stopping at the Wellcome supermarket to pick up some more mixers. I was really worried that we'd run out of alcohol, but I'd supplied some of the basic spirits and a good 12 bottles of Taiwan beer (the big 'uns) and Naomi brought a good supply of beer too.

So apart from Rebecca we were the first ones there and it wasn't the fact that He didn't bring anything to drink (apart from paying for half the mixers) that worried me - what really started me thinking was that he'd brought a newspaper to read.

Next I was initially happy to receive three young doctors from the  military hospital where Rebecca's sister Oeifa was recovering from a particularly nasty scooter accident. You can imagine my concern when answering the question, "what'll it be guys?" they told me, "water's fine!" Aaaargh!

As if this wasn't nightmarish enough I answered the phone to two guys trying to find the place and after giving them directions found out that they were two sixty year old co-workers from one of the girl's schools.
Now picture the situation. My first big party, a guy with a newspaper, water-drinking doctors and two sixty year olds. The picutre doesn't look good, eh?

When they (Gene and *** actually turned up they were more the life of the party, things were happening (although I noticed that Gene had actually moved away from the guy with the newspaper) the doctors were off the water and other people started arriving. Things were looking good. 

It must have been around 11 and things were kicking off. Unfortunately as my camera was playing up (it's now in the repair shop) most of my photos didn't turn out. There was no official count but estimates range from 50-70 people turned up and being that there was only the living room, kitchen and patio - with a few people on the roof, that was no small crowd. 

Things were cooking along nicely and then Roseanne turned up with the food. Well I'd got in a load of crisps (that's chip's to anyone who's not in the know.) and Roseanne said that she still had some pasta and bolognese frozen over from her party which gave Eric the chance again to tell everyone how good Roseanne's pasta is.

All of the information from now on is way out of chronological order but I'd already had more than one beer and surely many more people were bestowing beer on me.

I don't know what time it was but it wasn't too late that Ken called, lost and looking for my  place. I gave him directions but still after about fifteen minutes when there was no sign of him I got out my bike and took to the road in search of him. I'd returned after seeing no sign of Ken and it wasn't too long before Ken turned up anyway with his brother Matthew. There were a good number of former Happy Family inmates (Kirvin, Kevin, Tegan, Korean-American Dan, Andy, Dan Stern and his brother Ben et al)  who came along which was really good as I don't see some of those guys very much these days. Others I see every Friday or Saturday night, usually at Tequila hour in 99's. Down below you can see Kirvin, ***, Dan, Kevin, your's truly and yet another Dan.

Sometime after midnight Christie came from a Hess party at Grandma Nurdy's that she had to 'officially' be at and not long after her arrival Ken thought it time to unveil his surprise which was a humongous cake that was really nice and well received by everybody who tried it. Unfortunately the photos of the cake didn't come out which was a real shame as I was so impressed.

When Christie came over from Grandma Nitti's she brought along Chantelle and Monica who couldn't resist checking out my room with the story that they were changing into their 'swimwear' (now that would have made some good photos!). 

After some co-ercing on the telephone I managed to convince my former conversation partner, Selena, to come over. I knew that it wouldn't exactly be the kind of place that Selena would automatically drop everything and come over to as she's more the shy, quiet type. She did however come over and was really shocked to see so may people (well I did tell her that it was 'just a few friends.')

Christie brought some magnetic poetry back from her trip home to the states which helped keep the kitchen occupied. Here're a couple of examples. ( I think you can easily catch the drift of most people's thinking on this particular night - I'm not at liberty to freely reveal the identity of the creator of the one on the left - but if you really want to know then e-mail me and all will be revealed!)

There's a mirror in the bathroom that's kinda psychodelic that splits the image into 16 different images. Anyone that knows Roni would know that he would be blown away with it and just came up to me saying 'Rob, I gotta have this mirror' I just smiled and said, 'No, just put it back'.

I was definitely happy with how it went - so much so in fact that I was still on a high the following day when I spent four hours cleaning up the flat!