One word? When seven would do…

instead of being vegetarians with dinner party grandeur instead! Would wife-swapping sex be better or worse than having to eat lentils last time and broad beans this time? Would I feel any less dirty, ashamed and sullied? 😆

I worked yesterday morning. I’ve swapped Saturdays for the indefinite future as there is a staff shortage issue of people able to be second in command and cover the desk in the supervisors lunch break. It’s no big deal to me (although Tarly is less happy about three mornings off to work in a week ‘You can’t be going again, that’s twice in a row!!!’ she told me yesterday morning as I put on work clothes) and means I get to only work one day a week every other week. I like to have stored up goodwill in the bank too to bring out and trade against if I ever have to ask favours in return.

It was a nice enough morning, I worked with one of the supervisors I rarely see but get on well with so it was nice to have chats with her and catch up a bit. It was fairly busy and I was utterly charmed by identical twin boys who came in to do the summer reading challenge on their second visit. They were gorgeous, all blonde haired and big brown eyed, finishing each others sentences, teasing each other and answering questions at the same time but with different answers. It’s not often I melt at other people’s children but these two were lovely. 11 years old and about to start the HUGE secondary school here in September though which had me quivering on their behalf (they’re just babies!).

I got home at 1pm and Dad’s van was outside which was a nice surprise. I really don’t see enough of him these days. He’d been here since about 10am and been hoping to see me so had hung on when he learnt I was at work but home at 1pm. I’m sure Ady’s hospitality of breakfast, lunch and copious freshly brewed coffees inbetween helped convince him :).

We’d had half a plan to go to a camping shop for various things we might want to buy and for Davies to peruse for birthday present ideas too. He wants his own tent, better penknife, own firesteel and various other survival-y things this year (he’s so nine!). But it was 230pm by the time Dad left and pouring with rain which would have rather scuppered looking round the outside displays of errected tents so we looked at porches on ebay and bought one instead to satisfy that desire 😆

Scarlett spent some time playing a zoo game on cbbc and Davies disappeared to his room for a while to play. The rain did ease for a while so Ady and Scarlett went outside to cut hedges including Peggy’s (next door neighbour who had a fall and only came home this week, bless her). I nipped out to Tescos all alone (I offered to take either or both children but they both declined) and picked up wine to take with us in the evening. Then Ady and I both had baths, fed the children and got ready to go out.

Mum and Dad arrived to baby sit and I think they all had a nice evening together. Scarlett slept up in Davies’ bedroom and they watched dvds but I don’t think they went to bed til quite late and shared Mum and Dad’s fish and chips as a second dinner. They were certainly both tired and crotchety today.

Dad ran us to Mike and Rose’s as the rain was still raining most insistently and we were greeted with capari cocktails for their Italian themed dinner party extravaganza! They’d invited Kristiana, a German girl from our reading group and her partner but in the interim her and her partner have split up and yesterday was the day she actually moved out to a new flat. It’s all fairly amicable but obviously she came to Mike and Rose’s alone and was quite full on company due to the fairly emotional day she was having. She ended up staying there the night and Rose sent me a text today to say they’d been up talking for another 3 hours after we left!

It was a very nice evening, with lots of laughs and plenty of interesting discussion though. I do enjoy their company and Ady feels pretty much at ease there now, although I think he still suspects they may do some car key chucking in the middle at any given moment of course.

But the food.

Oh the food.

Ady tells me it is delicious. And the bits of it I do like, I do really like. It is beautifully cooked and presented. But it is not the hearty, flavourful fayre that we tend to eat – large portions, late at night, with plenty of herbs and spices. This is more your delicately, subtley flavoured, eaten at a respectable hour, cooked according to cook book instructions and served in appropriate dishes. And of course it’s vegetarian. Which means, let’s face it, it will either be vegetables or pulses really doesn’t it.

And this was a multi-coursed, ongoing saga of a meal I have to tell you. We kicked off with these cocktails which were very nice indeed. Bitter and shockingly red but very nice. I do like a good cocktail or three. And we had three! 😆 Served with olives and pistachios as nibbles. Then we took to the table for wine (white, dry, expensive) and anti-pasto. Marinated peppers (thankyou but no), courgettes (not for me really thanks) and mushrooms (the only thing I have never brought myself to eat, even out of a sense of shamed politeness). They were marinated with enough oil, red onion and garlic, and topped with sufficient toasted pinenuts and shaved parmesan for me to tolerate the peppers and the courgettes. Just. I thought that would surely be the worst I’d have to face.

But no it was broad beans with cream and egg. I’m not a huge fan of scrambled eggs really. I can tolerate them, as invalid food, cooked with melted cheese and served on lightly buttered toast. Maybe. But with broad beans? Broad fucking beans!!!! No

But I had to of course, didn’t I? Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Just me, an empty plate, fancy cutlery and a great big pot of beans and egg heading towards me to serve myself with while everyone looks at me. I took as few as I could possibly do without feeling incredibly rude. It was seven. And even then they looked pitifully small in comparison to how many everyone else piled on their plates. I can’t even claim to have a small appetite can I? I’m big and fat, there for dinner and have only eaten a tiny amount of peppers and courgettes. Ady gushed enthusiastically about how delicious they were while I ate them as quickly as possibly, slugging wine down with every mouthful to take away the taste and occassionally when noone was looking, holding my nose at the same time.

I was offered seconds. I said no and claimed to be saving myself for subsequent courses. Well aware that this could be erroneous as I’d still never be able to claim full-up-ed-ness as an excuse for later, even more awful offerings. At this stage I was considering suggesting swinging to them even if they weren’t previously of that nature simply to distract everyone from the beans and egg.

Next came the main course. I knew this was pasta as we’d seen it drying on a fancy pasta drying rack in the kitchen, while quaffing cocktails and exchanging home made pasta anecdotes. I love pasta, but that’s not to say it can’t be tainted of course…

Actually this wasn’t too bad at all. It was pasta (very nice) served with a tomatoey, oniony, garlicky, olive-y sauce. The tomtoes were far too big and lumpy and still looked like tomatoes which is not an incarnation I am keen on them in and it’s only since I was 34 I have liked olives but there was more shaved parmesan to conceal the tomatoeness of the tomatoes and this was a course I made friends with.

More wine may well have aided this benevelont attitude towards the pasta too.

It all got better from there on in really. I didn’t resort to suggesting we all adjourn to the bedroom together and bring the mushrooms and bean and eggs to smear on each other rather than eating them and given we will be hosting next and my parents only ever babysit about twice a year so we’re safe until the other side of Christmas the worst was now over.

The next course was pears, stilon and pinenuts. Not only did I like all of the things on the plate I could have kissed them for not being anything evil. I suspect my swinging tendancies had crossed to foodstuff at this point. I was certainly making love to my wine glass, the wonderful grape offering comfort in my hour of need. I think eating is a bit like companion planting which I’m learning about for the allotment. Swigging wine with beans makes them not nearly so bad, numbs the pain, blurs the shame.

Dessert was zabalione, which was divine. No vegetables at all, or if there were he had blended them so smoothly I couldn’t tell they were there. It was all Madeira wine soaked and gorgeous and I even had seconds.

Coffee for those who drank it – I’ve never yet felt obliged to say yes to coffee either and they brought out a dinky little teapot for one for me to have tea. We had chocolate mints, which we’d brought with us as last time we were there we all made little foil animals with the wrappers which was fun and got quite competitive. Rose said she kept them for about six months and actually felt quite sad when she finally chucked them out! 😆 We were not so good this time but did create a pterodactly, an elephant, a stoat (I think it was supposed to be something else but looked more like a stoat), a swallow, a crocodile and a butterfly which looked more like a stingray. Rose then tried to make a globe with all the countries on it using their circular slate table mats as a base and I covered all her countries with the relevant wildlife from our collection. It was practically the same as one of those Leappad globes, except it was a slate mat covered in deformed looking screwed up chocolate mint wrappers with five raucous drunken people who’d been eating beans and egg sitting around it.

Rose did suggest the mats would be ideal for writing on and that maybe she’d get some chalk in next time so we could all write messages to each other. I didn’t say anything in the hopes she forgets but that would be just my luck. Chalk, pulses, vegetables and their two dogs who get locked away while we’re there but I can feel the presence of in the house, waiting to spring out at me when everyone else is busy swinging with each other in the spare room!

We ended with liquers – limoncello and an amaretto type liquer which just smelt diving, like liquid alcoholic bakewell tarts and marizpan. Mmmm.

More chat, more wine drinking and plenty of laughing later we decided we’d better head for home. By then it had stopped raining and it’s downhill all the way so Ady and I walked home, getting in at about 1230am. We chatted to Mum and Dad awhile about plans for Dad’s birthday later this week. We also sat and watched the screensaver on my old laptop acting as a big digital photoframe with old pictures of us all from the last 10 years or so. We really have been to lots of cool places and lots of nice parties and holidays :). Mum and Dad left and exhausted from it all, we went to bed.

Today I slept in til about 1030am. Ady had been clearing the patio of stuff growing in pots which means I’ve got all my washing line space back again :). I packed up some lunch and we headed to the allotment for a few hours. That was nice and successful and we cleared lots of space and came home with more produce, plenty of which we used for tonight’s dinner of roast beef – potatoes, peas and sweetcorn were all our own :).

The afternoon sort of meandered away really. We all had dinner together, everyone had baths and I read a chaper of a book to the children before bed.