It's NOT a dinner party

We're having people around for tea this week. Actually there is a level of social intercourse booked for this week which is making me slightly dizzy. I suppose you've got to find something to do when it is raining so long and so hard as to render gardening impossible.

So let's deal with tomorrow evening's people round for tea event. Green party members, which means ethical eating. Gone are the days when I served my hippy-ish friends fish for dinner. Fish eating is not the worst thing since Rwanda, but it is nevertheless risky since we'll probably witter about ethics half the night. The good news is they are also socialists, proper working class ones, which will make it all easier cos that gives you a bit more room for mucking in and enjoying yourself. I don't invite precious people round. I only invite people I adore.

I'm only inviting two people for tomorrow night. More is just asking for the d-p phrase and that makes me shake. Last school holidays we had two different lots of people staying with us and then invited another couple for dinner as well. I was doing just fine, cooking up a storm (I got brought up farm-style properly in this respect and can feed the five thousand when called for). Then my sister in law mentioned that she'd been on the telephone to her husband and told him we were having a dinner party. I choked, gulped and stopped stirring. I hadn't thought of it as a dinner party. Dinner parties are scary things involving etiquette and glamour. My chief skills in relation to etiquette and glamour are in spelling the two words. There is a steep drop in skill level after spelling. Just as well the meal was nearly cooked so we could go in and have a good time.

I think I have tomorrow night ready for sorting. That leaves tomorrow day, when I should be taking food for shared lunch to a friend on her farm. Where they eat lots of meat and use eggs for any vegetarian meals coughed up for visitors of that strange persuasion. I need to take something that all will eat that has no gluten and no eggs cos of my boy. Popcorn at this rate. Don't talk to me about baby food. The baby should go back in my tummy for the day for ease of food headspace.

And then. Then I will have to get up on Thursday morning and divide up and price avocadoes cos we have another coop due and do a coffee group playdate at the park (guess whose idea that non-house based one was?) Then make more blasted popcorn for a kiddie birthday party so my boy doesn't have to face the unvarnished truth of his randomly sometimes competent mother and to avert him telling the hostess that all the other mothers have made special gluten free food for him at parties. I'm coming home and going to bed at 2.38pm on Thursday.

The only thing I have dared think about Friday is wine. Cos Friday night we have been invited to friends and I think that one really is a d-p. Better wash all my purple clashing things in time I guess.

When will it stop raining so I can forget all this and garden?