Boxing Day Party Train

Freetown

Oooooh. Wow.

Well, it wasn't exactly a party. It was three 8*S

First, we went to a friend of Hirut's parents' who has a house across town. She'd hired a really cool brass band and there was a mass of fantastic food - hot and spicy, naturally.

The only odd thing was that the yard she held the event in was at an almost vertical slope to the front door! We all had to perch rather precariously on our seats for fear of falling over sideways. It was quite a balancing act, and gods forbid you should slip with your plate of food :oO

Now, they definitely need a landscape gardener. We'll lend them one once me and Hirut are through with ours ;)

We stayed for food there, then went on to another gathering of her parents' friends as it got dark. I recognised most of them from previous parties. Lots of familiar faces, but also an older crowd. Very laid-back, and more food. It was impolite not to have any, but I'd just eaten a massive meal. I had a very tokenry helping and then helped myself to the rum. So much free booze and food, it was like an entire year of deprivation had just been made up for in the space of a week.

I love Africa, though. Parties in the UK amongst the more mature crowd are usually pretty static, but boy can OAPs dance in Africa! Talking grandparents and great grandparents. Hair as white as the clouds, but my goodness can they still move it and shake it. Reggae from pre-Bob Marley through to West African classics of the modern day. Women who can barely climb the steps to the dance floor are shaking it for Zion. Most impressive. I hope to still have the stamina when I'm that age. Hell, who am I kidding? I wish I had the stamina now lol

After that, we peeled ourselves out of our chairs and headed to the final party: a house warming. The music was really good and nobody forced us to eat anything. We rolled up towards the end, so there wasn't much dancing time left. Nice house, though.

Got back at a not-too-disrespectful hour but, if I had parents like hers, I wouldn't be alive. Sierra Leoneans just don't stop partying! Her mum assures me it's just the season and that things quiet down until summer but, my goodness, it's madness :op

Now, having boasted of all the parties we've been to over the past few days, you'll never believe what I'm up to now.

It's five to midnight.

And we're ironing.

That's right.

Ironing.

We've been at it solidly for about the past eight hours.

Hirut's mum is throwing a big party tomorrow night for Herbert's 60th birthday. He's already 60, but he celebrated it elsewhere and now wants to have a big family do at their brand new beach house out of town.

We're ironing around 200 white gossamer chair covers, and the same in cream satin table runners, and other such. Everything to be steamed by tomorrow morning. We're armed with music videos and a bottle of Baileys, but it's hard going and I reckon we've still got about an hour-and-a-half's worth still to go. We've got two ironing boards set up facing each other, high chairs, and a bottle of water for the hand-helds. We're ironing machines!

All this high society life is grand, but so much work. Before this, I packed 60 party bags and then wrapped each one lovingly in two strips of ribbon and a silver sticky stamp. I burnt myself twice on the glue gun in the name of 'party'!

Hardcore :o}