Champagne and fart jokes
Last night we did a bit of socialising. I know, I had to read it twice too. But we really did, we had Hubby’s naughty partner-in-crime-at-work, J, and his lovely girlfriend, S, round. And a jolly nice time was had by all I can tell you. I started off having a total panic because being a man (yes, I’ve checked) Hubby didn’t think to clarify whether they were coming for dinner or just drinks until I had a very unseemly hissy fit and made him text J. We settled on a selection of hot nibbles and I got my revenge by sending Hubby out to the shops on a Saturday afternoon to buy baguettes and prawns and that sort of stuff that you don’t keep lying around (cue evil laugh).
So, back to the evening. It got off to a tremendously good start when S, who turns out to be very high up the pecking order at a very large and very posh cosmetics company (and incredibly groomed, slim and beautiful too, natch), arrived with a veritable bucketload of freebies for me. Naturally I took to her instantly and the evening was set from there really. We discovered a mutual fascination/irritation of the way our other halves quote their partner-in-crime ALL the time: ‘so I said to J….’ and ‘so when I told J he said…’ and a mutual amusement at the fact they toddle off for lunch together at their favourite venues every day like an old married couple. Naturally we got loads of stick back, but the general good-natured atmosphere of gentle piss-taking was very enjoyable.
Oh yes, the food. So discovering that J isn’t a lover of ‘little green bits’ in things (Hubby told me), I regretted my choice of little baked chicken and spring onion cakes with sweet chilli sauce (uh-oh, mucho green bits), stir-fried prawns in chilli butter on crostini (and, having a glut of prawns, some of the same in garlic butter too) and quickly cracked out a few plain grilled chicken skewers with satay sauce, some little chilli sausages (that I forgot to cook until it was too late) and loads of peanuts, crisps and tortilla chips with various dips. For dessert I just made chocolate brownies (must share the recipe with you – they were very good) except I didn’t have any walnuts so I used almonds instead. You know me – nothing if not resourceful.
#1 made some yummy Champagne cocktails (frozen tropical fruit whizzed up into slush then topped up with Champagne, Bellini style), both #1 and #2 gave us a little impromptu guitar concert (which our guests seemed to genuinely enjoy, much to the boys’ absolute delight) and after we finally packed the little blighters off to bed, we settled down to an evening of chatting, more drinks and a bit of background MTV.
So, it’s not often you meet a couple for the first time and hit it off quite so well. I always think you can tell a lot about people from how they treat the kids, and J&S listened patiently to all the kids’ waffle and laughed politely at their silly jokes too (the staple of pre-adolescent boys – fart jokes and sniggery toilet humour). And what an absolute bonus when you can grill your female guests for grooming tips, insider info AND get freebies into the bargain. Result.
