I hear that Dermot O'Leary is on Radio 2 this morning... and so I am reminded of last Saturday's antics at FORTYTUDE.. cringing and smiling at the memories, here is a quick recap.

2pm last Saturday Amy, David, Janet and Matt arrived Chez Neill all looking marvellous in their 1940's costumes and armed with vats of wine and beer for the party ahead. We opened the champagne and raised a glass to a child free afternoon and evening of revelry. We had all managed to send our minis off to their grandparents' for the night so it was time to let our hair down.

Taxi arrived at 3.15 and took us over to our venue in Hook Heath. C&I's place looked fabulous, bunting adorned, straw bales in place, the bar set up and even a 40's jeep as one of the props, everyone had made a huge effort and looked great - bright red lipstick and seamed back stockings as far as the eye could see. The wine flowed and we all took up camp under a small gazebo at the top of the very sloping garden - it is at this point that I shall alert you reader to the fact that there had been a LOT of rain - happily there was only one downpour during the party but as a result it was very slippery, something which would make navigating the garden somewhat difficult later on.

The chablis was flowing and the music played, everyone was in post war merriment and there was much laughter and dancing, they also had a fish and chip van come and do the catering which was a brilliant touch. It was shortly after tea that the whole affair began to get messy.. Katie managed to persuade me that the vodka and cranberry juice was a good option and Matthew decided that a great accompaniment to his evacuee outfit was Pat's pink leather gloves.. the carnage started.

Amy fell off her chair, twice - second time in to me taking out the side of the aforementioned gazebo, David took her home at 10pm and when she arrived she promptly fell head first in to the flowerbed! Janet and I staggered around trying to dance but in reality falling down drunk - and then the worst happened, poor Dermot arrived, yes he is a friend of the birthday couple - and after my playing it pretty cool on the 'don't bug the celeb' front - decided that when Janet was trying to get her photo taken, that I would vocalise the fact that he was much shorter in real life than he was on the telly! Oh the shame, he took a huff and stropped off at that (unsurprisingly) I then managed to lose my hold ups, MAC lipstick and umbrella and I have no idea how. I have no recollection of the taxi ride home but we do have some rather shocking pictures of Janet and I covered in mud eating toast at mine at 1am! Oh, we lost Matthew - he fell up some steps, gashed his knee and bumped his head and got his own taxi home at 5am!!! The next morning I was covered in bruises, slightly shocking headache and it took me nearly 36 hours to recover. Was such brilliant fun though - just won't be back on the vodka any time soon...