Its been a busy weekend: A dinner party of which the menu is above, then my 16 year old was having a party, and as the Saturday drew slowly closer my shoulders visibly hunched in an upper torso stress knuckle as I kept repeating the mantra “What the fuck were we thinking?”

The dinner party was a smash, all foodstuffs of whatever colour were consumed with joyful abandon, with no recourse to any consequences, of which the only ones were hangovers really. the cheese cake was particularly fine. But as soon as my bit was done, the gloves were off and the evil Cypriot spirits came out, and it was really awful, far more awful than it was when I was 15 years younger; it must age badly. But the forgotten Rhubarb gin which I stumbled upon in the cupboard was absolutely sublime, although  I did have to remove two of the uppermost chunks of rhubarb from the top of the jar as they were above the liquid and were showing signs of fuzzy discolourment in a mouldy style, but what the drinkers don’t know… Cooking for 8 adults is a tricky business, the recipes were not particularly stressful but herding the revellers into their seats without everyone of them deciding they need to walk off to various parts of the kitchen to retrieve condiments to “help out” is always rather irritating. Once they’re sat down though, they’re happy enough. 

My son had a fancy dress party on the Saturday, Halloween, but everyone just wore what they found in the dressing up box or on line a couple of days before, they demand instant gratification and so if Amazon can’t deliver the day before they ordered it then its hardly their fault…Preparation people, just think ahead a little. Pre-drinks at GP’s house before heading over here in the early evening gloom coincided with a frantic lady trying to get the communal defibrillator to work to take it home to revive her husband and being helped by a couple of Topgun airmen, a sultan, a soldier and a Rasta, sadly the man who needed the defibrillator didn’t make it despite a load of villagers, some party goers best efforts and 3 ambulances. Poor guy, was only 60.

Getting back to the house, the party kicked off and Mrs T and I decided to leave for GP’s house where we spend 4 hours eating pizza and telling ourselves that out house would be OK and our son’s friends were lovely and no one would touch my records. I did let several of the boys know that if anything did happen to said records that I would hunt them down and come at them when they least expected it, this could well be months into the future.

We got back at 12:30, I took over the decks and by 1am most folk were trickling off home in various parents cars, by 2 am there was a handful of people, a broken sofa, 8 Vapes at last count and a shoe in the bushes. I don’t think the dog appreciated having lager put in his bowls though, maybe that was why he was off his food for a day or so, no hair of the dog for Benny.  

My son the day after, Rocking the Look, drinking at 9am and wearing a cape; it doesn’t get much better than that! I’d do it again, no harm was done and no toilets were ripped off the wall, although there were traces of tacky vomit around the downstairs sink on the Sunday Morning.

RIP that Poor guy who’s wife my son encountered on Saturday night on the way to his own Party, 60 is no age.