Party time for Annika

There were pirates...

Damian made a surprise guest appearance.

Lots of glamour: Annika with Julia's sister, Venita.

The guests were very attentive during the speeches.

Julia tells Annika's life story.

I'ts about 10.30am on Sunday morning. I've just finished compiling the list of stolen items for the insurance company and now all I have to do is complete the police report and go apologise to the neighbours. Approximately 8000 people turned up and the result was as you'd expect. Annika's friends were a mix of her old friends from Emerald and her new mates from her two years at uni, plus the entire cast from "Pirates of the Caribbean". Among older guests were many Keartons including Julia's siblings Robert, Adrian and Venita, Robert's son Matthew and his wife and kids, Adrian's family including his son, Michael and Venita's beautiful daughter, Tahnee. Dave Morley turned up as front door muscle and Semples and Allensons (family friends from Emerald) added to the crush. Julia and I made short speeches and Annika responded not in the traditional manner of thanking her parents but by telling the guests to "get down and boogie!". Dom and Annika had put a play list on a laptop and I'd made the mistake of plugging it in to my old band's 160W PA. I spent most of the night turning it down. The ping-pong table was heavily used, as was the outside fire. Annika organised a game of "Pin the tail on the Donkey" at about 1.30am and had a surprising number of starters. The police arrived around two and those who weren't already asleep left relatively quietly. I'm with you, Ash, when you say "never again" but I guess you only get the chance to do it once. Annika had a brilliant time which, I suppose, was the whole point of the exercise...