'twas the night before...

by the time bed time came on the night before the dinner, all i can say is that we felt pretty pleased with the result! The decorating had come together and our efforts to keep it simple seemed to have suited the overall impression which we hoped would give people arriving a sense of culture as well as simplicity and welcome.

Virginia and i had scoured the cheap retails stores and discovered green and gold netting ( left over from christmas time but suiting our 'earthy' colour scheme) - the gold was more a ochre brownish and the green was leafy and looked promising. it took a bit of trial and error to work out how best to use it for the table and a few efforts at creating a sense of 'movement' rather than 'flatness'. The result was a wave like production which extended down the centre of the table with intermittent raffia ribbons for anchoring.

We had also discovered 'lizards' which the boys had put dibs on as their 'job' after their chores were done in the morning. We had picked up some pretty realistic grass plants for around the room as well as disposable plates made of banana palm discovered at the Central Market. These plates meant we could get away with out too many dishes to wash up but still avoid the plastic waste of the usual disposable 'crockery'! Every candle karen and i had had been brought to create candle light for the meal - although apparently the purple ones wIth glittery spots didn't quite 'go' so they were returned to the box to go home for use in our next power failure!

final counting of the chairs - karen's ritual each night over the past 2 weeks- resulted in a plaintive cry of "how can this be? we are short on seats!". Not to worry - we were so tired, there was no doubt that by morning, the right number would again be around the table!

As the boys helped to tidy the servery area, M1 commented::

"We need to keep this area clear so that in the morning while i am having breakfast i will be able to see Africa."

our job was done!