The tradition lives on

I may have mentioned that I've lived on this road twice before. Once as a student and once when I first started working in Manchester almost exactly 30 years ago.

In my student days we had a great tradition of holding parties where we would stock the cellar with real ale (we started with one firkin but by the time we held our last party we were up to three firkins - 27 gallons - to ensure everyone was well watered) and invite everyone we knew.

I'm glad to say that tradition is alive and well. OK, it was our dining room we stocked with ale since we don't have a cellar and we didn't invite *everyone* we know, but by the time the party was in full swing we had 55 revellers in the house and we were BUMPING. Almost all the neighbours turned up, some from Nikki's workplace, some from mine, two-thirds of my mates from Nottingham, more than a dozen Chorlton Players and an identical number from Chorlton Chapters. Although we didn't achieve much of a mix between the various groups (the house is big enough to form cliques in different rooms and full advantage was taken of that) there was a small amount of cross-fertilisation, mainly under the gazebo where the smokers gathered and in the conservatory where people congregated if they wanted somewhere to sit where there was no music.

I started serving my famous chilli at around 9.30pm with baked potatoes. Once people had the idea that it was available I left them to it and when I returned to the pot - a tureen about the size of a 2-gallon bucket - an hour later it was virtually all gone. The karaoke was a huge hit (so much so that several neighbours asked me if we could organise to have it at the street barbecue in four weeks time) but we knocked it on the head at 2am out of consideration for our neighbour, even though we think he's probably too deaf to have been disturbed by it.

By that time about half the guests had left anyway, and the rest continued to leave in dribs and drabs until about 4am when we were left with a tight kernel of revellers who just wanted "one last pint" before calling their taxi or, in the case of Andy and Lara, remounting their tandem and attempting to cycle home.

It's always a worry having such a large party, especially when you know there are some inveterate piss-heads on the invite list, but we got off remarkably light in terms of damage. The hot tap in the bathroom, which turns the wrong way for "on," was by the end of the evening so loose that you had to hold it to turn it on at all. I knew I was fighting a losing battle putting up a sign saying "turn anti-clockwise for on, if the tap is stiff you're turning it the wrong way" but I felt I had to try. I guess you don't read notices when you're drunk. I retightened it this morning and it doesn't seem to have suffered any permanent damage.

One of the guy-ropes on the gazebo looked to have snapped when one of the girls from the book club fell through it into our pond, but on closer examination it had simply slipped its knot and was perfectly fine, so the only damage there was to her pride. And maybe a bruise here and there. And the fact she had to go home stinking of stagnant water. I think we'll have more lights in the garden next time. Our security light chose a particularly inopportune moment to blow its bulb.

Despite making it clear on the invite that we didn't want any housewarming presents, several of our friends and neighbours couldn't stem their generosity and we've ended up with some lovely new stuff, which was completely unexpected and very touching.

We kicked the final guest out at 4.15am this morning and I spent another hour clearing up before finally hitting my pit at 5.25 - exhausted but very pleased with how it all went, very happy, and feeling very blessed to have such fantastic friends and neighbours.