Another re-telling

I was cooking dinner last night when H.I. said she was going through to the next room to re-watch an episode of The Bridge while it was cooking. I said I would bang a gong in the hall when it was ready. We laughed.

Then I remembered that my mother went through a relatively short period of banging a gong to summon us in from the huge garden for lunch, rather than uncouthly shouting out DINNER'S READY! from the terrace for our nearest neighbours to hear. My mother had aspirations toward some level of grandeur, and would certainly not have called lunch 'dinner' as most of my school friends would have done. At least she didn't call it 'luncheon'.

At school, 'dinner ladies' gave us our lunch. I love that they were affectionately called dinner ladies. There was a British band called The Dinner Ladies. 

I pronounced myself a vegetarian at one point, and the benefits were huge. My meal was prepared completely separately to everyone else's, and I did not have to join a queue of 200 carnivores to pick it up. I was the only vegetarian in a horrible Secondary Modern of about 750 other kids.

When I look back on it, I realise that I have spent most of my life - including (or especially) childhood - being a complete pain in the arse. I'm not proud of it - in fact during moments of self-doubt I am ashamed of it. Being invited to dinner at friends' houses in later years, I would tell them that I was a vegetarian after having accepted, and very often the host would say, Vegetarians are a pain in the arse. When I reverted to meat aged about 25 (me, not the meat) I understood what they meant completely, and punish any vegetarians at my table with a slab of cheddar or a hard boiled egg if they didn't bring their own nut-roast.

Is there still such a thing as the dinner party circuit? More accurately, was there before lockdown?

I loved my dinner party circuit. Nine times out of ten I would end the evening by sleeping with one of the guests. Quite a few times out of those nine it would be with the hostess herself.

On one such occasion I waited for all the other guests to leave before mutually pouncing on the hostess, and ended up having breakfast as well as dinner. When I left in the morning, she made a date for a return bout, but this time as a candle-lit dinner for two. It was set for about two weeks hence, and she waived me off in the full expectation of repeating the experience.

About two and a half weeks later I suddenly remembered the missed appointment. I was such a coward that I did not call her to apologise, but tried to forget the whole thing.

Then, about a month after that, I found myself in a gigantic hot-air balloon floating in her direction with the pilot desperately seeking a landing spot before he ran out of gas.

She lived in a vast country house and her landlord was a titled aristocrat who was also her friend. As we approached the house at low level, the pilot spotted a large paddock area and thought it would be the perfect spot to put the balloon down. I began to worry and pointed out that there were horses which were already showing signs of panicking  by running around in circles at the sight and sound of the huge thing in the sky.

The pilot was just about to gain height and search for a different place when we saw the the Viscount, the Viscountess and my hostess sitting on the terrace drinking gin and tonic. I was expecting him to shout up to tell us to eff-off and stop frightening the horses, but instead all three rose to their feet and began waving encouragement to us, pointing to the large stretch of grass at the back of the house and making downward movements with outstretched arms.

Well, we landed and I had to face the music. Then I had a brilliant idea.

I climbed out of the basket and went up to the hostess saying, "Sorry I'm late." 

All was forgiven.