Yep, here we are, hubby and me having a little pre-drinks party in Nautilus cottage (see here) before we joined the revellers in our local pub for my ABBA party. We moved into this holiday cottage for the weekend as part of my 60th birthday celebrations and invited some of the family around to get us in the mood for the night ahead.
One or two fuzzy shots are inevitable as the booze was flowing freely!
My niece Zoe (far right here) owns and runs the grocery store on the neighbouring island of Bryher and in addition to looking after her young son, also has a thriving cake making business. My dietary issues mean I can't eat cake and I was worried that I'd miss out on that particular birthday treat, but Zoe delivered this wonderful chocolate cake for everyone else to enjoy.
Zoe copied my pink patent brogues to perfection. They look too good to eat, don't they? Follow the link here to see more of Zoe's incredible cakes as well as seeing her adorable son Emilio.
And this is Jamie downloading ABBA music at the last minute as plan A had gone awry. He did a fabulous job with only 30 minutes notice, helping with the playlist and putting the sound system in place at the pub in time for the party to start.
Oh, just one last tweak!
So here they are, all the party goers in their various and splendid outfits -
Ready!
All the shiny, happy people.
All that hair!
All those teeth!
Pucker up!
Ben was a previous gallery assistant of mine, but didn't look half as sexy then!
Have you lost something, Steve?
As the evening progressed, the boys became girls and...
... the girls became boys!
The family photos seemed to be lacking my favourite daughter every time!
Boys in green satin, boys in blue satin - it's not often you see that in our local pub!
My poor feet were aching after four hours of dancing in these heels.
Catching up with Polly...
... and Heather.
And my other gallery helper, Max on the left. What an amazing wig!
Diggin' that man-love!
The smoke machine was working overtime, but that didn't stop them boogying.
I'm so grateful to everyone who made my evening the success it was. I think about half of the adult island population came and weren't the outfits just fantastic! I'm already thinking that I need another birthday party like this next year - it's the perfect antidote to that post-Christmas slump. Another year, another theme... Any ideas?
I had lots of lovely gifts for my birthday and want to share them in another post. I also managed to fit in a couple of photo shoots while I was in Nautilus, so will feature some of that in my next post later on this week. I gave myself a few days away from work and the usual domestic routines as well as social media, but now I'm back home I need to get back on track. So to my fellow bloggers - I'll be round to see you soon. And to all my readers - thanks for your patience and I hope you thought my ABBA post was worth waiting for.
See you soon!
Anna x