marie antoinette's birthday...

(all photographs by annabelle thom. www.annabellethom.com )

as one will logically conclude, she hopes with narrowed eyes, school has started, hence my sporadic writing. so there.

still. a LOT happened in between. since zanzibar, i mean.

and school starting.

arriving back on the ngorobob hill, in a suitably soporific dazed zanzibari state, i had to sort out, in due haste, a marie antoinette outfit for my friend's 40th birthday party. she was hosting it at the opulent Ngorongoro Crater Lodge. if you haven't heard of it, google it...it's a sort of maasai meets versaille lodge perched on the edge of the world's largest caldera. read as Definitely Not Cheap. it was so incredibly gracious and entirely generous of my dear friend. and an apt surrounding for one as beautiful and as gorgeous as her kind self.

the view...

the bath tub ... and rose petals...(remember you are at an altitude of 7500 feet so its really cold...hot baths with a view are a luxury)...

she expected us to all "make an effort". considering the effort she was making, it goes without saying that we should too...tales filtered down from nairobi that people were ordering theirs from Penny Winter. again. read as Not Cheap. sue smsd me from london "shall i get you an outfit and a wig? 195 quid?" i balked.

to find the appropriate outfit is harder than one thinks, in a town like arusha...you don't have fancy dress shops. you could go, if you had the time and inclination, to mitumba, about which miranda and i have written ad nauseum (the 2nd hand clothes market) but this needs Time, a Diligent Creativeness,a Keen Eye and Patience, of which, at the time, i had none. not a jot.

i mused about going as a 1970's afro haired gangsta, toting an AK 47 and booga mina booga wena shades, a large joint and platform boots, the look rounded off with a jaunty swagger and a more than petulant demeanour, with the excuse that i had misread the invite. i could've stolen one of the golf carts and roared around Ngorongoro Crater Lodge firing shots into the air. i can relate to that sort of stuff...but marie antoinette...? all frou frou and feathers and bodices and hair and fuss...? good lord, jamais!

as luck would have it, i met T, our salubrious hair dresser, in town on her only day off. she has a Keen Eye for these sort of things and an effervescent enthusiasm. she whisked me into Jam Boutique, a sort of African Bridal Shop, packed to the hilt with sparkly ball dresses and brides maids outfits, the kind you might have seen on Dynasty or Dallas. as i was carefully peeling off a strawberry hued creation, all set about with silver streaks, T shouted "Oh My God! I have found IT!" indeed she had. i squeezed into a dusty pink and ivory affair, appliqued with shiny little beaded floral arrangements. "squeezed" being the operative word here. over a salad lunch we vowed not to put on an ounce more weight....no more pasta, booze, chocolate blah blah bleh...diet pills and well, water should do it? box remains unticked to date...more on this later if at all.

i envisaged tackling the Crater drive looking like one of the Simpsons, wind blown and dusty she hastens to add, paying my park fees with a blue lopsided very high wig....the park rangers knowingly ignoring me sort of sighing "mad mzungu..." needless to say, i never quite got round to procuring a wig at all and relied on my frizzy hair to do the job all on its own. what a to do it was. what FUN! and oh my. everyone made "an effort". my outfit managed, by some bizarre twist of fate, not to split and i ignored the little rolls of back fat. i couldn't see them so that was fine. out of sight out of mind. everyone was quite splendid.

madame de la roi...

the birthday gal...marie antoinette herself...waiting for her cake...

messieurs...rather dapper, i'd say...

musketeer and his masked madame...

la noblesse entiere...

and finally, the beautiful photographer herself, annabelle...you must see her website. http://www.annabellethom.com/she makes beautiful bags and shoes in kenya and can sing opera in russian, chinese, cantonese and italian. with great gusto and aplomb naturally.

needless to say, a good time was had by all. so. happy birthday nibs! she is presently walking from the Victoria Falls to Namibia, via the Caprivi Strip, a wild wild strip of land, guiding some paraplegics....not for the faint hearted.

oops. no time for kitchen board today....dinner to prepare....guests arriving in less than two hours...toodely toot y'all and bisous X.X.X. french ones, obviously x. j.