I was still busy greeting the continual influx of guests at the door when the buffet table came under the first wave of attack. Thankfully the lovely Brigitte was on hand to help control the masses and manage the placement of the hot dishes – ham and vegetable frittatas, tuna pasta bake, jacket potatoes and my new specialty meatballs! All of this plus the usual array of salads was disappearing at an alarming rate as we still awaited the last trickle of arrivals.
Finally it was time for me to close the door and resume kitchen duty, with a slightly more relaxed second chance to greet each of my guests whilst dishing out the chicken curry. Later it proved a veritable obstacle course trying to get the dessert dishes through the crowd and onto the terrace table, but eventually the peachy panna cotta, chocolate gateau and popular new citrus pie were in place… and all gone in about 5 minutes!
To get back to the vital statistics there were 41 women and 36 men, with an almost even split between newbies and cosmo-pros. I tallied up a relatively modest range of nationalities, just 13 compared to the 20 or so we are used to, with healthy contingents from our host country and neighbouring France vying for the majority.
I do feel this time it was just a tad overcrowded and I only hope that there was enough food and drink to satisfy all, in future I will try (even harder) to stick to the 65 limit to make things more comfortable and manageable. But whilst the huge turnout added to mess factor it evidently also added to the fun factor:) Cheers to everyone for their good spirits! 
