The floor by the dinner table next morning was an interesting shade of sparkly silver - copious quantities of glitter was shed by various fairies, and I'm still finding the odd wand along with bits of wings in unexpected locations about the house.
Ted tore off his hot pink feather boa collar in disgust as soon as he'd said hello to the guests and could make good his escape. I later found it mauled behind the sofa - it looked like the particularly violent death scene of a strange and lurid bird. He took some of the feathers outside and left them in the garden. Half have disappeared and I've been giggling over the thought that several nests are now probably lined with bright pink feathers!
The theme of the party (which was to celebrate my 40th) was magical creatures and I had planned initially to go as a fairy (something to do with not having done enough dressing up as a child probably) but my husband stole my costume so I ended up as an imp. It was largely agreed that M carried off the fluorescent pink footless tights, blue tutu, silver earrings, wings and shocking pink wig well (possibly better than I would have done), so I didn't mind.
A crowd of our friends headed over from the nearest town in a shared taxi. They'd neglected to warn the driver they were going to a fancy dress party so quite what the poor man thought when he arrived to pick them up I don't know. In the end we had an invisible man, a six foot dwarf, a haggis who looked a lot like a brown cow, a Paul Daniels with his lovely assistant Debbie McGee, a witch and three brightly coloured fairies, not including M and I. Apparently the taxi driver didn't say a word when he drove round to pick them all up. Maybe this sort of thing happens all the time in rural Hampshire and he's just used to it. On the other hand I expect he had a good old laugh when he got back to taxi HQ and told them what he'd just witnessed.
Slightly against my better judgement, here are some photos for you to giggle or shake your head sadly over.
Colourful lot aren't we?
Right, on to more sensible things...
Ted (who was microchipped yesterday at a "Pooches in the Park" event run by the Dog's Trust, an experience he did not enjoy) and I have just got back from a lovely walk through the bluebell woods near Mottisfont Abbey. There were a few bells out but mostly the woods were a carpet of white and dusky pink anemones. I'm looking forward to the blue coming in the next few weeks.
When I got home the Blackcaps and our Woodpecker were enjoying the fat balls and I managed to get some videos. Here they are...