Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone. It is still the 30th here in the states.

The women looked fabulous in evening dress and the men in black tie.

But the best part was just before midnight when one of the guests tuned up his bagpipes and played ‘We are sailing’ into the New Year – there wasn’t a dry eye in the house!
Still brings a lump to the throat just thinking about it.

Lovely people in a wonderful place – couldn’t ask for more really!

Christine

Does anyone have a fab party planned for tonight? I think I’ll be lucky to see the new year in this year… camping with our little kids mean we all tend to go to bed early-ish…

but Anna – no – not invited onto Britannia by HM – this was when the yacht had been decommissioned and put in Edinburgh as an attraction… but only just, it was Burns night and the host did the toast to the Haggis etc – it was really pretty awesome.

OK, I’ll be back in ten hours or so with the winner of the books!

My lovely writing friends from HMB bought me 50 golden roses and I was overloaded with glorious flowers. We had a wonderful dinner together and lingered late into the night still talking and laughing . . .

Hmm – think I need to start planning for my 60th (book that is)

Lovely to have a few days of rest and come back here to a great post. I hope you and yours had a wonderful Christmas and that the little ones ejoyed their camping experience.

Ah, glitz and glamour, two things I lack in my everyday life of raising boys. How fabulous it is to have them delivered right to my doorstep via paperback! And as I already have this particular book there’s no need to enter me into the draw. Wonderful heartwarming stories with just the right amount of excitement to keep us all happy over the holidays. Lissa is one very determined heroine and I love how she met every challenge head on, even when she was literally down to her last ounce of energy. As for James. Well, James is a man I would be thrilled to find wrapped up under my Christmas tree. Or unwrapped, that would work too!!

Fancy parties are a thing that only happen for me once a year, every October I attend a Black Tie Ball, a fundraiser for a very special charity. I wear ancient jeans and hoodies all the time so the opportunity to glam it up in a ball gown makes the night amazing before it ever starts. My husband wears a tux and being that I’m used to seeing him in overalls for work, it sure is a very pleasant treat for me to spend the night with this sexy ‘stranger’. On arrival, us ladies are greeted by the male staff of the hotel and given a single red rose each, all the while an old style crooner offers up such velvet classics as ‘cry me a river’ & ‘only forever’. We’re then escorted to the lobby where champagne is poured and served, not forgetting the accompanying strawberries. It’s totally indulgent and lends occasionally to a surreal ‘out of body experience’. (Of course that could be entirely down to the champagne!).

A five course meal follows, an auction, a live band and finally the night ends on the high notes of a crazy dj who spans every decade I can remember. It’s one hell of a party, made all the better by knowing that every cent raised goes to a most worthy cause.

Every good wish for 2010 from Ireland,
Aideen.

It’s difficult to pick a specific party/ball that is memorable in content, except the ones in which part-goer/s made a bit of a fool of themselves. Which, at hunt balls is not uncommon, nor at private parties particularly when hunting games get out of hand!

That said, a private luncheon which the Queen and late Queen Mother attended was memorable, though it was more about purchasing yearliing colts than eating food, so it was an incredibly informal affair. Both Queens conversed with whomever happened to be close by, but one had to be on the ball in all things equine.