An undeniable success! Here’s a taster of what went on…

On the whole guests were well behaved and followed the instructions they had been given. Cakes in attendance were as follows (nb the following list may not be accurate due to a cakey haze surrounding memories of the event):

Lemon drizzle, Wellington squares, banana (x2), pear and almond, carrot, orange, Jamaican ginger, gingerbread, iced with special words by a special person, Battenburg, fairy cakes, chocolate cornflake (dark, milk, white), Guiness, malteser and flapjack.

These included both homemade and bought delicacies, all of which were received with many thanks. At the end of the night and the next day people were invited to take samples with them and the venue’s impossibly ample tupperware collection was tested to the limits. Despite this cake was still being consumed a week later.

As well as favourite and home-compiled CDs, music included Master of None as well as late night acoustic performances by a number of guests. However it has to be said that the Swedish drinking song and a particularly moving rendition of Nessun Dorma were the surprise hits of the evening.

The first activity (if you don’t count people being invited to help finish preparing food when they arrived) was pass the parcel with fiendishly clever forfeits, followed by a cake and music quiz later on. Voices were heard muttering that the questions for this had been too difficult but organisers noted that this particular activity seemed to encourage teamwork and sociability, not to mention a healthy competitive spirit amongst certain of the revellers.

The festival was judged to be a success, with one guest refusing to go to bed until it had been declared officially over close to 5am.