The Birthday Party

There were a whole bunch of Jilly Cooper-style riders, hard hatted and holding crops; a roller skate girl so tall and skinny, the boys drooled as she rolled around; a sweet-faced boy in an American football outfit, war paint and all and numerous Bjorn Bjorg-esque tennis players, skinny white legs sticking out of too-short white shorts, sweatbands pushing their fringes out of place.

It was held at a rugby club on the slopes of The Mountain of The City beneath The Mountain. The decor has not changed there since the 70's but the view over the city is spectacular and The Moon had put on her party clothes too and was shining her silvery full moon light over the clouds that scudded by - children's drawing clouds - making the night sky look like a painting.

The regulars at the bar looked on, staring, at this motley crew of happy revellers, realising only when a guy dressed in a wetsuit arrived that it was a sporting theme. They didn't mind, as long as roller-skate girl continued shaking her li'l bootie around.

Great music, cocktail sausages with blocks of cheddar cheese and gerkhin on toothpicks, pineapple candelabras, a faux-Hawaiian backdrop for photos and noise! The noise of people talking, laughing. Old friends catching up, new friends being made. I met a boy from my Varsity of old - a dear, sweet boy. We chatted for ages, talking of people we know in common, I asked him how long him and his boyfriend had been together and he indignantly said: "I'm straight." And then we laughed and laughed.

The American football player, with the sweet face, is an artist, passionately so. We spoke about me putting his art into words or him putting my words into art. I got his number, we'll see. I watched one of my best friend's husbands in deep conversation with his wife's ex-boyfriend, my oldest friend (longest-standing... I've known him since I was born, our mother's being friends since their days at the same Varsity that we both went to.) Finally. They got on really well, unsurprisingly.

It was all in honour of another of my oldest friends' birthday (we worked out yesterday that it's been 17 years - we've known each other almost longer than we didn't, if that makes sense.) She is the one that I always said if the world ended and I was allowed to take only one person to live with me on another planet, it'd be her. That's why it was no surprise that, for her birthday, there was a room full-to-overflowing with people who adore her.