May Ball

Finally I've got round to making a post about this most herculean(!) of nights. I've taken photos, but they were pretty poor - I really could do with a new camera, tho am disinclined to spend much on one; maybe I'll wait, maybe I'll steal someone else's photos (Erika if you're reading this - pleeeeeeeease, You have such amazing photos!)

Jen, Lyd and me got in a little early at 8.45 to get chance to set up (and have a sneaky peek round (and the first smoothie off the table) before the doors opened at 9). We had a nice little marquee thing in the Master's garden and even got our names in the program (I'll attach a picture of that later). The set went strangely at first, no-one watched until the very end, and instead we had to "blast"out our sound to the garden without any amplification. Suffice to say, from what we heard afterwards, it went ok in the end :). It was good fun anyway, and we got special yellow arm bands for being "awesome", as I imagine Lydia would say.

The rest of the night was superb. We danced to The Rumble Strips, who were pretty good (the headline act, The Young Knives weren't great), Lydia's band "Second Hand Kisses" and to some surprisingly enjoyable Electro - think I must just have been in the perfect mood for it - it was really good fun taking up the whole of the cellars thrashing round. There were boat swings, a coconut shy, a noodle bar, a bouncy castle, huge (and I mean HUGE) numbers of innocent smoothies, which kept our blood pure to make up for the champagne, bucks fizz, bullinis (sp?), beer and whatever else there was that I missed. We poked our heads into the casino, and, though it was packed, managed to get a peek at some of Reece's artwork, which was cool.

I love the way the Clare Ball is big enough for you to wander off and see everything, but small enough that you know you are going to bump into your friends pretty soon anyway. Dunno where I'll go next year - perhaps to Clare and a Snow Ball (Selwyn perhaps?), for it will be my "last" (i.e. 4th from last) year.

Tom

(backdated from 30/06/06)