The picture is our Christmas plant, which seems to have become remarkably phallic. I am not sure if it is meant to be like that and perhaps it is intended to represent some sort of humour, although since it was given to us by Nan and Grandad I think it unlikely. It has become two feet tall almost overnight, without a single modest leaf with which to clothe itself. I have followed the instructions very carefully. I think it is just youthful exuberance.
Mark’s friends are coming for dinner tomorrow and I have worked myself up into a state about it.
These are the people to whom I was less than friendly the other night.
First impressions count, and since I have messed that up I have got to rely on the second impression. I have got to not appear mental, and to be honest this is looking less and less likely with the passing of every hour.
I have become entirely anxiety-ridden about the whole thing. I do this anyway when we are going to be social with people, as you might have noticed, really I should only ever do it as a surprise to save me ages and ages of fruitless internal whittering and flapping about.
I thought that I could probably manage to cook dinner but could not work out what. Mark suggested a Turkish thing with eggs that he likes, so that was all right, and I did some ethical shopping in Booths this morning, partly in case the visitors have got scruples, and partly because the Co-op’s delivery had not arrived. However, then there was the issue of pudding, on which I had drawn a panicking blank.
They are bringing their children. They have got three children, all under five years old. This has cost me extortionate amounts of cash in persuading Lucy and Oliver to perform childcare duties upstairs whilst we drink too much downstairs.
There is not room in our kitchen to feed eight people, and so the children are going to be banished to their floor with chicken nuggets and waffles and Netflix. They have agreed to this but there was a price.
I accepted the figure they mentioned, because it was not negotiable, but only on the proviso that we get an extraordinary amount of peace and quiet in order for me to renew my acquaintance with alcohol. This relationship has been having a trial separation recently but I think on balance that there is enough love there to make it salvageable, even despite the occasional disastrous instances of abuse and misunderstanding. In any case I am going to need its benignly encouraging nature in order not to become a helpless twittering idiot. I shall be a helpless drunk idiot instead.
In the end I thought that we could probably give ice cream to the children, and that inspiration solved the whole pudding problem, because we had run out of ice cream. I made some more, and then used the leftover egg whites to make meringues. Now we have got cake and toffee sauce, which we had already, and ice cream and meringues and strawberries, which is lots. In any case by the time we get to that stage of the meal we will probably have drunk enough not to give a hoot, and there is still a wonderful stack of cheese in the fridge, left over from the Christmas markets.
With all of these little difficulties tidily resolved to my satisfaction I stopped worrying about dinner and went to bed to sleep off the late shift from the night before. I did not go to sleep. I lay there worrying about whether they were just coming to be polite or perhaps Mark had persuaded them because he did not want them to think he was married to a degenerate hooligan. In this case they might eat their dinner politely and bolt for the door.
In the end I decided that I was probably just being mental, and of course they will be nice, because Mark likes them. Mark is quite good at choosing people to like, as long as you ignore the ones he only likes because they are interested in boilers.
When I got up I went swimming and to work. Some intoxicated muppet covered the back of my car in kebab and mayonnaise and then said some rude words and ran off without paying. He was new to the area and clearly did not understand the difficulties of living in a small community. I rang his boss at home and woke him up to tell him all about it. He is going to sort it all out for me tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
It will all be fine.
