The mismanagement of the social diary

Do y’all remember that Andy Griffith episode wherein Andy is overwhelmed with social engagements? A dinner party and a bridge night. And he reckons that he can go to both if he skips dessert. But the problem is that he goes to dinner at the bridge folks’ house and then he shows up to play cards after the dinner party is over.

Yep.

We were invited to a family party this weekend several hours away by car. The Vol-in-Law isn’t especially close to his extended family, but he really wanted to show off his new boy – especially since he’s the first of his generation to reproduce.

The last time we went up there we did have two social engagements. A traditional wedding in this quaint East of England village and then a wedding reception back in London with yummy margaritas made with real limeade smuggled in from the States. We actually did go to both.

And did you know that champagne does not mix well with tequila? I’m saving you the two-day hangover by telling you now.

This time we didn’t have two social engagements.

But we got the day wrong. (And by we, I’d like to make it clear that I’m taking corporate responsibility for the actions of another member of our family management team.)

Because of the baby, we went up the night before so we’d be fresh and ready for the day long party. Only as soon as we arrived, after packing and dealing with the baby. And did you know how much stuff you have to pack for a baby? And then driving up and checking in. And then we discover that we got the day wrong. And the party is almost over.

So we change out of our baby food decorated clothes and run up there. Where Buddy appeared for a quick photo call (at one point there were four or five cameras flashing and popping in his face), which Buddy loves. He’s ready for his close up now.

And then we go back to our bed and breakfast. And that’s it.

Oh, except for the travel cot which Buddy mistook for some kind of Dick Cheney approved interrogation cage and just would not use. And the bed that was way too small. And the heat that went off at two in the tiny room with no insulation – meaning it was hot, hot, hot and then freezing cold. So no sleep.

But all was not lost. For on the way back we stopped at Woburn Safari Park, where we petted wallabies.

Fun, fun, fun

Anglofille highlights a new theme park on her blog - Dickens World. I couldn’t be bothered to follow the link. In fact, I said so on her site:

OK, I’m not even going to follow that link, but just imagine – imagine what Dickens World would be like. Oh, the street urchins, the squalor, the bleakness, the pick pockets, the long hours, cold rooms and utter desperation…

Paah, why leave London?

I mean what’s next? Flannery O’Connor Land, the Faulkner Fun Fayre*, Dorothy Parker’s kiddie adventure playground?

Although at least at Dickens World, you’ll have a bit of fun at the end of the day.

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*turn left upon entering Yawknapatopha County, from any direction

To have and to hold

Yesterday the Vol-in-Law and I went to the wedding of a friend of mine. I worked very closely with him on a project for over two years and I had known him before we started working together on the same thing. During that time, I can’t remember how many gals he cycled through. But quite a few, and usually inappropriate. Then he started dating this new girl – and in looks and personality she couldn’t have been more different than her predecessors – but more different still – my friend actually seemed happy.

Their wedding was lovely. After nearly a week of bad weather, cold and grey and wet and blustery, I was really worried for their day. But the sun started to shine, and the flowers were blooming – and it was a beautiful day (if perhaps still a little windy).

They got married in an old country church by an exuberant country vicar. Their reception was in a real village hall.

country church

They had done some really nifty touches for their reception, including homemade bunting in green and pink calico and gingham – and they had placed crackers at every place setting. If you haven’t seen crackers before – they’ re basically a cardboard tube filled with little party favours, including little paper crowns and a joke and wrapped with decorative paper. But best of all, they have a little explosive charge. You pull them with your neighbour – they “bang” (only a little bit, not so much as to be scary) and then if you get the tube – you win the prize. (But there’s enough to go around, so everyone shares).

Crackers are more of a Christmas thing – not a wedding thing – but it worked really, really well. They’d chosen the musical kind – each cracker contained a numbered whistle tuned to a specific note (there was a full scale represented on the table). There was also a sheet with numbers printed on them – enabling you to play (if you followed the order and blew on time) Love, Love Me Do, Here Comes the Bride, and other such romantic favorites. Our table was dreadful! Really dreadful! We didn’t produce one single tune effectively, and we did try.

This saddened me, because I had brought crackers with these same favors to Genderist’s big Christmas breakfast morning that her parents throw each year when I was in Tennessee two Christmases ago. They took to them very well indeed and were able to blow out recognizable Christmas carols. At the time, it seemed just what you should be able to do, but I look back on that episode now with a new-found admiration.

They also had bubbles…

and love hearts

Monkey in the sea…

…cat on the bag, dog in the boot.

Yesterday I was oop North…in the Newcastle area. Every time anyone says anything to me in a thick Geordie accent (I don’t know why they’re called Geordies) I either have to say “Pardon” or I just nod and smile and hope the meaning of their strangely inflected words will sink in before I have to make a cogent reply. I once nodded and smiled when a Geordie fishmonger suggested a most intimate encounter – for all I knew he’d been merely asking for directions. When I finally figured out that he wished me to use an approach more suited to a Washington intern, all I could do was flutter a polite “no thanks.”

I call this impenetrable version of the accent “Monkey in the Sea”. As in “He was all monkey-in-the-sea.” This is based on a sketch from a show called I’m Alan Partridge. In the sketch the Southern English guy (Alan) has a dawning horror as he realises that the Geordie character threw his pet monkey in the sea because it ate 200 of his duty free cigarettes. And the folks of this area have form when it comes to monkeys. According to legend – the citizens of a nearish town hanged a shipwrecked monkey beached on their shores on the charge of being an invading Frenchman.

Among the wreckage [of a Napoleonic French vessle] lay one wet and sorrowful looking survivor, the ship’s pet monkey dressed to amuse in a military style uniform. The fishermen apparently questioned the monkey and held a beach-based trial. Unfamiliar with what a Frenchman looked like they came to the conclusion that this monkey was a French spy and should be sentenced to death. The unfortunate creature was to die by hanging, with the mast of a fishing boat (a coble) providing a convenient gallows.

Anyway, so I’m in a taxi yesterday from my hotel to my work gig and my cabbie was all monkey-in-the-sea. I’m all “what…” until finally I figure out he’s talking about a tool for a timing belt. But the folks up there are really nice, so I engage in the whole timing belt discussion. I pay him and then he gets my bag out of the trunk. But he’s taking a long time and I hear a strange brushing commotion coming from that area.

A little background…when I go away I always take my black roller-bag – the one with the orange Power T on it and when I come back Other Cat – the white cat – always lies down on it, shedding copiously. I prefer to believe it’s because she missed me. Her fur is particularly difficult to get off – vacuuming won’t do it – and I’m lazy and slovenly, so I drag the bag around with enough cat hair on it to make a whole ‘nother cat. Seriously, it looks like some kind of weird angora roller bag.

I go round the back and the cabbie is vigorously sweeping the bag with his hand and he’s all monkey-in-the-sea about a dog-in-the-boot and I can’t figure out what the heck he’s saying. But finally, finally I realise that he’d been transporting his dog in the boot – and though he’d put a blanket down he thought his dog hair had gotten all over my bag. He was MOR-T-FIED and mumbling apologies and, bless him, he’d actually managed to get all the cat hair off with his hand, before I just burst out laughing.

“Aww Sugar,” I said “That’s my cat’s hair.” And I tipped extra.