Friday night I got home around 7pm and the guests were due at 7.30pm, so I quickly got changed, grabbed a glass of wine and was ready to greet the first of them. The night went quite well, there were about 30 of us in total, and the first thing Aunty Barbara (she used to live next door) said was "So are you getting married, engaged or have a boyfriend or boyfriends?" I think she wants an excuse to buy a hat. Several people said this in different versions throughout the night. Mum made an excellent punch, which got them all a little tipsy to start off, then we moved onto the wine. The food was excellent, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Our new neighbours - I have to say he's a bit of a Darren, good looking from a distance, but when he's close up he doesn't look all that good. His wife however is very pretty and they have two daughters (who weren't there, but we talked about them a lot). They turned out to be a good laugh. They stayed right to the end, when it was just Martha, Babu, Edna and this mad woman - Janet and her husband. They were all pretty pissed and we tried to get them dancing to sambas and stuff. The woman was game, she ended up dancing with Babu the poor thing - he's a bit slimey when he's had a lot to drink, thinks he's God's gift to women, but he's pretty harmless. We finally kicked everyone out by around 3am. Tried tidying up a bit, but there was just too much for the dishwasher to cope with, so we went to bed.
Saturday, I left the tidying up to mum and dad. I had to pick Rob up from the station around midday. Then we started the drive to Jane's, trying to follow her directions, but we got lost even before we reached Southam. So, Rob took up navigation using my 1990 road atlas. We got lost around a place called Kineton and did a loop around the village of Radley or something and ended up where we started getting lost, but once again we were soon on route to Jane's. Rob's directions were great and we got to Jane's only about 1/2 and hour late. But it seems that in this half an hour, they had already made a start, and were about to open the second bottle of champagne which they were using to make Bucks Fizz.
Later, the cocktails got stronger and the barbecue was lit and burgers and sausages were carbonated on it. Thank goodness for white bread rolls - good at absorbing alcohol. Giles had brought his accordian, guitar and bongo, so it turned musical and we started singing along and discovered that Rob was really good at singing. Neil Diamond songs Stranglers songs. It was great.
Thing that made me giggle (internally) - Jane brought up the fact that she had fancied Dave at University and Dave had also fancied her, but their go between - Steve1, didn't tell either of them that the other one fancied them. She wondered what would have happened if they'd got together and I said I'd still be with David. She said something about him being ideal marriage material. Dave really isn't that sort of commitment kind of guy, well, it's not what I want right now. I don't think Jane's planning on getting married to Simon for a while - her sister's scaring her off by marrying her blokie and having the full church wedding lark.
The party came back indoors and slumped on sofas and the floor, where I think some information about Jane's personal life that she really didn't want her new work people knowing about came out in conversation. Jane leads double lives, she is now called Madeline and she anonamously writes stuff, some of it could be considered to be pretty bizzare, particularly the Miami Vice stuff. Jane by now had conked out in her bedroom, but made a final appearance before midnight, when she offically called the party off by going to bed. Jon, Dave and Rob and I stayed up a bit longer, and I have a vague recolection of them massaging my feet. Jon was all dressed up in PVC and Rob in strokey satiny black-wear. They kept on posing for photos together and looked like they could make a good couple, but both of them are straight, as long as tickling each others ears doesn't count!
The following morning, I don't think those cocktails wanted to stay in Jane any longer and she spewed at around 7.30am. She and Dave both looked a bit worse for wear. Dave had a head ache and indigestion simultaneously and wasn't his usual smiley chirpy self, but I think he got better after a fried egg on toast.
Jane kicked us out after breakfast, cos she wanted to get some more fish to replace the ones which had died over night. So we said our goodbyes and Rob re-directed us back home. I took him to the station and slobbed for the rest of the evening.
Sunday night I watched an excellent film on Serial Killers, which has inspired me today to order Hannibal and another book on female serial killers. As I said, don't worry, it's just a phase. I am also reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep or something like that, it's supposed to be the book that became the film Blade Runner.
I guess I'd better do some work, I've spent a lot of this morning reading about Ed Gein - Serial killer in the 1940s on the internet. He inspired the writing of lots of books like Psycho and Silence of the Lambs.
