Summer Ball

Last night Peter & I went to the Summer Ball held at the Officers Mess at Boscombe Down. It was like nothing we'd ever been to before at a mess - it wasn't a formal dinner like all the other mess events that wives get invited to. Instead, it was a huge party open to all officers on base (about 500 people were there) themed "A Night at the Oscars" - the entire mess was transformed into different stations all with movie themes. There was things to do indoor and out, and if it wasn't for the fact that it was freezing cold outside, this would have been awesome - but it was still pretty good. When we arrived we walked up the "What a Wonderful Life" red carpet on "Sunset Blvd." - first time walking up a red carpet - kinda cool. We met up with some of Peter's friends from the course in the "Brokeback Mountain" room which had arcade games and a dance fusion game. After stopping for some drinks at "The Right Stuff" bottle bar, we went out to the appetizer tent, the "Titanic" fish bar. There we had crab shells stuffed with a crab meat pate, as well as lobster, shrimp and smoked salmon - it was really good. At 20:00 we sat down for a buffet dinner in the "As Good as it Gets" tent; for dinner there was a huge cold buffet with salads, fish, potatoes, cous-cous etc - TONS of food! During dinner we were entertained by a Wandering Magician who performed some tricks at our table - needless to say, we were all very impressed!

After dinner we wandered out to "The Killing Fields" laser clay shoot - that's what we're doing in the pics of us holding rifles. I was awful and only scored 3 out of a possible 20 pts., Peter scored 14 - he's at least handled a weapon before! It was also really cold outside and I was wearing a knee length halter dress and shivering the whole time - I think that affected my score ;)





It was then off to "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" room to get our photograph taken in front of a huge movie themed backdrop ... then to "The Color of Money" casino to gamble away some fake money! Everyone was given vouchers for 20,000 GBP with their tickets to play roulette, poker or blackjack with - we ended up waiting in a queue so we left, only to come back after the casino had closed up shop for the night. There was also the "You Can't take it with You" chocolate fountain with a huge selection of fruit, marshmallows and candy to dip ... so yummy! We sat around in there for awhile, there was also a huge selection of coffees, after dinner mints and liqueurs. Around midnight we went outside to the "Chariots of Fire" Dodgems, otherwise known as Bumper Cars ... that was lots of fun, and then onto "Apollo 13" Skymaster rocket - the classic fair ride that starts out swinging you really slow and then goes faster and faster until your upsidedown - this was interesting to do in a dress! Peter spent most of the ride holding my dress down because I was too busy screaming and feeling that all the food I had eaten was about to come up! Before leaving we headed to "The Towering Inferno" outdoor bbq where there were ribs, burgers, hot dogs and big sausages. Peter had some ribs, I was still full from dinner ... It was quite the set up - they even had the bathrooms labeled - "Little Women" & "Goodfellas". All in all it was quite an impressive event and we understood why we had to pay 30 GBP each for a ticket! We had a lot of fun and we did finally leave around 2 am, drove some people home and then headed home to sleep!!


Today we went shopping in Salisbury - I needed to find a navy blue hat to go with my navy blue dress for the garden party on Tuesday. I suspect that my next post will be about that event!

Team PM