Reading and shivering

I've finished the first book, which was 'Madras on Rainy Days' by Samina Ali. Very well written and I've been reading most of the morning so I haven't got any work done. It's written in the first person by Layla, an Indian Muslim girl who has been brought up in Hyderabad and in Minneapolis, six months of each year in each. I have been to a couple of weddings in India, when relatives have returned home from all over the world for the celebrations. A marriage has been arranged for her in India and in defiance she sleeps with an American boy before submitting. She is overwhelmed by the warm and loving welcome she receives from her husband's family but there's a barrier between her and her husband that she doesn't understand fully until later. The author writes about the underlying discrimination shown to Muslim Indians and their (well-founded) fear when a riot broke out.

I was in Madras myself when there were riots a few years ago; a politician was arrested for corruption and her supporters were bussed in from all around to demonstrate. I was on an organised bus tour of the city that day and so didn't know anything about it, but my Indian friends were very anxious as buses can be targeted. In fact one was, students returning from the local agricultural college were stopped and ordered off the bus before the demonstrators set it on fire. But they didn't wait and two girls were trapped and died.

It must be an odd feeling to belong to two countries and yet entirely to neither. Layla says that she is called American in India and Indian in the US, and I can see that happening to an extent because she comes and goes for several months at a time. But surely this effect lessens as time goes by and we all become more cosmopolitan? I don't know how old the author is, but her experiences of even a few years ago might not be so true now.

Just watching the weather forecast. It looks as if the snow I wanted a few weeks ago is on the way. I think I'll go shopping, just in case we can't get down our drive in a day or two. It'll certainly be cold, so I'll have to make excuses to stay in the kitchen and cook big vats of soup and keep warm that way.

Not all good luck

Younger son and I went to Norwich today, he wanting new clothes and we both wanting to see Caché (Hidden) with Juliet Binoche and Daniel Auteuil. I started by going into Jarrolds and leaving some time later both richer and poorer, by 5 books and £36. So I went down to the cinema, which has an adjoining bar, to have a drink and sit and read while waiting for the film so that there was no temptation to spend more money.

But the bar was closed as the staff have chosen today for a jolly. And the film on offer was Match Point instead. Apparently Caché was delivered 2 hours early and to the wrong place, so was taken back to the depot which then shut for the weekend. Oh.

I trailed back to the city to check Son's regular haunts but couldn't find him so sheltered from the hailstone under an archway and read a book - blimey, I thought, a slender paperback for £9.99, especially as a first novel. I looked at the back - £6.99. Checked receipt again, sighed, went back up the hill to reclaim my £3. Since I'd forked out £4.50 in car parking (really, Norwich is outrageous, they really don't want visitors. Even the park and ride is £3 which is fine for a day but I don't have time or money to shop for a day) to see a film that wasn't on, I wasn't going to lose out by overpaying for my book as well.

In the event we went to a different cinema and saw Good Night, and Good Luck, George Clooney's new film, about CBS reporter Ed Murrow's stand against Senator McCarthy in the 1950s. Powerful stuff, brave of GC - hardly a mass audience film and in black and white to boot. Noticeable also for more cigarettes on view in any film since The Man who Wasn't There, also b & w. I think I read that George C put on a good deal of weight for the film, how dedicated of him since he is reaching an age when it is very difficult to get it off again and once that chin sags, can you get the taut jawline back? He doesn't look fat, just bulkier than usual. With a thicker neck. The b & w was necessary as footage from the time was included.

With 5 new books (plus 3 library books, 2 of them unfinished and 1 unstarted, due back next Friday) I must go and start reading.

Tearing my hair out and getting it cut

It's only once every three months, but the job takes hours, simple as it sounds. I write the rota for who reads the lesson, hands out the hymn books, makes the coffee etc each Sunday service. What would be easiest would be an invariable rolling programme; if it's first Sunday I'm making coffee etc. This does work to some extent, but I have more willing people (isn't that a good situation) than there are places, although not everyone wants to do the job every month, some people are willing to do whatever I ask them and some prefer to do a specific thing. Then I have to remember school holidays and who isn't available then. I'm not really whingeing - well, okay, maybe I am, but I prefer to think I'm just explaining.

Job done. I printed out 20 copies and highlighted each person's name on their copy. I made a list of names and how many times they were on duty. Added it up. 72. Counted how many duties. 73. I've gone through it three times and still can't find whose name isn't highlighted. And yes, I've added up names and duties several times too, I don't trust my number skills either.

I had my hair cut yesterday. I went to the same hairdresser for years and then she took maternity leave and so another person took me over. Nice girl, married with two little boys; but her personal life became too complicated and I found out far more about her than I wanted to and, indeed, could see more than she knew she was telling me.
After some months of this I went on holiday just after Christmas and so didn't make the usual appointment. My hair got longer for months as I kept putting off going back and hearing the lastest disaster.
Fortunately the salon was in another town and in the end I ventured into a new place. And was sat down and my hair discussed. Which hadn't happened in years. So I finally got a more flattering hairstyle that is easy to look after and a cheerful hairdresser who doesn't talk too much, or expect me to.
It costs more, but is certainly worth it.

An ordinary idyll

My vegetable seed order has arrived, what a pity it's far too cold to venture into the garden or even sow seeds in the greenhouses. I love growing plants from seed, much more satisfying than just buying them, but I'm something of a fair weather gardener nowadays. I assure myself that early sowing doesn't matter as the seedlings will be held back by the cold, leave it a few weeks and they will catch up.

I went to a Gardening Club talk with a BBC weatherman the other evening - a meteorologist rather than one of the ones who fancy themselves as tv presenters and think doing the weather report and sexing up the forecast so that you will be enthralled by their wit and lovely teeth is a good means to that end. Since there is nothing about a weather forecast that is interesting, it is incredibly soporific, all that happens is that I have stopped listening by the time they mention East Anglia and miss it again.
Anyway, he says that the cold weather in Siberia is driving migratory birds over here and sick birds could well land in this part of the country. Our bantams are not just kept for their eggs, they are pets and we are very fond of them so I am worried. We'd be really upset if a culling order went out, but that's the way the government went with BSE, swine fever and foot & mouth so, although it is universally agreed that it was the wrong way, there is no sign that they have learned any different.

I, with friend Al, had lunch with a visiting lecturer the other day. We had an enjoyable series of conversations and she was good company. She and I talked at times about our families - later I emailed Al to say I wondered if I'd overtalked mine, I said I know I make it sound idyllic (though I know it wouldn't be for everyone), but it is quite an ordinary idyll. He says that sounds like a book title.

I've been unpacking boxes of books and putting them on shelves. My son and wife have been storing them for me, but now they are expecting another baby they will need the room eventually. I spent nearly 2 hours on the job and was pleased with the result but there are still hundreds to go and Ive nearly run out of shelves. I have an idea for using the back of a deep alcove in the spare bedroom however so there's not too much danger of having to cull the book collection yet.

sentimental reflections......

I don't think I've mentioned that my son and daughter-in-law live next door to us which works well in that Green Son can grow his veg in my kitchen garden - this is the theory, he doesn't really have time so I do most of the work; doesn't matter as I've always grown lots of veg and enjoy it. I don't really do flowers, being both practical and greedy I prefer a useful end result to my labours. Also, we're on hand for each other whenever needed, whilst having our own independent living space. It (the living cheek by jowl) is a sensible and useful idea that could fall apart badly if we didn't all get along. It makes me extremely happy that we do. D-i-l says she loves living here (and after all she could tactfully say nothing) and we certainly love having them and Grandbaby.

I've no idea how long the extended family thing will go on for, maybe it's partly that we all are mutually supportive but give each other space - not always an easy thing for a motherly type to do, but I need my own solitude and don't expect to see them every day, though there's always a welcome on both sides.

A fly in the ointment? Haven't found it so far. We must never take a relationship for granted, but then I always try to worry well ahead so that I can ward off forseeable problems.

It's so lucky that our two married offspring have both chosen partners that I can honestly say I love and truly feel are members of the family. In the space of a year we went from three Juniors to five. Great for a mother hen.

Downhill all the way

Well, I take back what I said about the Winter Olympics not being exciting, although I am vindicated too in a sense. I'm watching the Snowboard Cross competition and it is certainly something to watch. It has, strangely, a look of a computer game; mainly because the course is marked out in blue paint and the competitors are filmed from above. They also wear helmets and bulky clothes so they have no discernable identity. But it's not often that you see Olympic competitors actually trying to slide each other out of a race and the skill is amazing. And nice comfortable names like Ruby and Doris, sounds like one's granny or baby (since these names have skipped a couple of generations) are taking part.

Just read a bit in The Times by Simon Barnes, who is not going to watch Brokeback Mountain before the Games are over - 'who needs to watch cowboys performing buggery when you have the luge doubles?' I see what he means, but he has not taken into account the sheer pleasure of watching Jake Gyllenhaal, whether being buggered or not.

So Shakespeare is again to be Bowdlerized, by Welsh school productions being forbidden to let the pupil actors to kiss, even when it's called for in the text. Idiots. And how patronising. If teenagers can't identify with Romeo and Juliet, whilst at the same time learning where they went wrong, what's the point of drama. Presumably Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood can't even be produced in a Welsh school, far too suggestive... Polly Garter with all her children, each by a different father, and even the name of the village, Llareggub, which is easier to remember backwards.

Food and eating

What do you do when a volunteer repeatedly screws up and remains blithely unaware of it? A group of us meet for lunch once a month and we have to book numbers at the restaurant a couple of days in advance - this is her job. But she keeps getting the number wrong which means we have to pay the extra. We pay a small sub each year in addition to the lunch cost, mainly for an annual tip to the staff, but our reserves are being badly depleted. Five mistakes in two months is over £60 and she still doesn't get it and we're too polite to tell her - and she's our friend. Someone will have to bite the bullet, luckily it won't be me as I'm going to miss three months as I'll be babysitting.

I read in The Times about a website that suggests recipes according to what ingredients you have. So I checked it out. Well, it could be useful, but only if you have a piece of steak in the fridge and it doesn't occur to you to have steak for dinner. Or you have cheese - toasted cheese anyone? Grilled tomatoes/bacon/mushrooms? These are not recipes, they are what you cook when you don't need a recipe. I probed a little further by omitting all the most useful ingredients and did come up with a few basic ideas, but all in all, I think someone is joking just a little bit. It's www.cookingbynumbers.com if you care to look yourself.

Mind you, having been out for lunch and with an early dinner required as my husband had a meeting, we had baked potato and pizza. Hardly needed a recipe for that either - frozen pizza obviously. And only one between three of us which was why I did the potatoes too, lucky Atkins is so last year.

The nature of Monkey .......

....... was irrepressible!
I'm tremendously excited to see that they are going to remake Monkey. Did you see it again, it was repeated in Britain last year (or the year before, doesn't time fly when you're sliding) and was as absurdly wonderful as it had been 25 years ago. According to The Times, a generation now in its 30s fell in love with it then - they had better do it well or we (I seem to be an honorary 30-something for the day) will give Fuki Television a very hard stare.

It would at least give us something undepressing to watch. Yesterday on BBC one they could think of nothing better to do than give us a reconstruction of 1979's Fastnet yacht race, when a sudden storm capsized many of the boats and many of the sailors died. I still have a mental image of one man, buoyed up by his life-jacket, eyes closed, was rescued - but he was already dead. I don't know his name but I've never forgotten the picture. It's surprising that it was ever broadcast; usually there is more tact shown when people die, in case friends or relatives will see and be further upset.

The Fastnet programme was followed by a documentary about a baby's body found in a concrete block. Surely equally unsuitable for Valentines Day, though equalled by Channel 4's 'How to divorce without screwing up your children'.

Bringing up baby, badly

I will be looking after Grandbaby for 2 days a week from mid-April as her mama has a part-time job for a few months. I look forward to teaching her all sorts of naughtiness, which I think is my job as Irresponsible Adult. My own children were babysat by Hilda who taught them all the slightly antisocial tricks she knew.

For example, poohsticks. Not the dropping sticks in the water from a bridge invented by Christopher Robin. More literally (rather than literarily), stirring a cowpat with a stick then poking that through the church railings, sticking out on to the footpath so as to besmirch an unwary pedestrian.
Pungey cakes. This was a mixture of seeds and berries, plus anything slightly unsavoury they could find, mixed with flour and baked, to be offered to Granny as a teatime treat. She knew better than to accept (Hilda had been her own children's nursemaid; my husband and his siblings). I only discovered recently that my daughter's variation on this (when old enough to know better) had been to mix up convincing-looking dogpoo which she then left in artistically arranged dollops in a neighbour's drive so they would think their own dog had misbehaved. I was not at all pleased when she admitted this - well, I say admitted but I think she was quite proud of herself.

My own ideas of having fun did not affect others, but consisted of encouraging them to get wet and messy. Bodypainting for example, which was the same as finger painting except that they could dip any part of themselves in the paint and then sit/roll/smear themselves on the paper. Mudpies, natch. And there was the time I looked out of the window to see my children in the pouring rain by a flooded drain. They had taken off their wellies, filled them from the huge puddle and were taking it in turns to pour the dirty water over each other. I should have hurried out, grumbling and hustled them in to hot baths. But, well, they were having such a good time. And how often did they play together happily. I made sure there was hot chocolate and cakes ready for when they came in. Sentimental mummy. Long time ago now though

I've been fairly messy today, Dave and I have been clearing out the bier shed. Nothing to do with a brewery, it's a church thing. The bier itself, which hasn't been used for years, has been stored in the boiler shed and after the cobwebs, spiders and a hibernating hedgehog had been cleared out, the bier shed has been filled with Useful Stuff. I felt bad about the hedgehog, who didn't wake up (I hope he made it through the winter) has been made a nice little nest, in the corner of two walls, on a bed of pine needles and covered with more of them, and with a covering of footstones (like headstones, but smaller).

Wine, snow and driving - but not at the same time.

The weekend was good, actually. The Rector's leaving party (one of six), supposedly a pre-lunch drink, went on until 6.20 and the last half-bottle of red wine (another half hour and I'd have had to open the good stuff or persuade them on to the white) after which I went to sleep on the sofa. The Rector himself had friends round for dinner, otherwise I think he'd have done the same (his own sofa, mine was full of me). Today I have been to church twice, which does not imply particular wickedness in the past week, but simply that this sort of malarkey can sometimes be the lot of the churchwarden. I did get to the pub afterwards and talked to a nice bloke who used to be a professional clarinettist and now makes clocks. I'm sure there are comments to make about keeping time there, but I'm not the woman to make them.

I play the clarinet myself, mostly jazz and Mozart. And the organ and piano, but I am not in the least a musician. A dilettante in all things; I dabble and like it.

I've got the winter olympics on in the background. So much of it is really dull; sorry, but the only reason to watch speed skating is for the moment when someone goes arse over tip and brings the rest of them down. And curling - not happening yet but bound to - is so toe-curlingly dull, even the terminology, skip and stone and all that, puts one to sleep. Skiing has its moments, but it's all against the clock and that will never give the thrill of a proper race; ditto bobsleigh and, well, everything. Except ice hockey and that's scary. Great Britain hopes to win a medal. Any medal, we don't mind which colour or which event. That's so sweetly unassuming.

I think I'm getting a new car tomorrow. Cars are useful rather than important to me (I really like Morris Minors best) and so the fact that it works and is reasonably comfortable is all that matters. However, I asked intelligent questions of my husband, whose friends are selling it - what cc; is it saloon, estate or hatchback; automatic or manual; petrol or diesel. Finally, what colour - silver. And the mileage is 15,000 miles in three years. So I know two things about it. It'll be fine.

The good thing is that I did major Housework on Friday in preparation for the party, so now large chunks of house are pristine and won't need doing again for ages. This is not a mucky house, just cobwebby as it is old and has exposed beams all over the place which spiders love. I don't mind that at all, but somehow a lot of woodlice get in; dear little creatures that are stoical and comical and quite endearing. I rarely see one alive; occasionally one drops from the ceiling and trundles across the carpet but they do get entangled in spiders' webs and one hoovers up quantities of desiccated ones. They curl up sideways like a trilobite when their juices are sucked out and I think that if I sprayed a few with varnish and left them for a couple of years I could convince anyone that I had a houseful of fossils.

Makes you think

I listened to a lectures about the Romanovs today, if it were fiction you would think it far too far-fetched to be true. I knew that Peter the Great came back from his visit to western Europe and made all the aristocrats cut their beards off, but I didn't know about his hobby of dentistry - as an after-dinner treat he might invite a luckless courtier to have his teeth checked, only to pull them out gleefully. And as for Catherine the Great, she had a man-taster as others might have had a food-taster. First the lady had dinner with him to see if his conversation and manners would pass muster then, if he passed that test, she would try him out in the bedroom too. As a result of her report, he might be invited to visit the Empress in her private apartments. And if she liked him, she'd keep him - for a while.

But what about the poor guys who didn't pass the test. How embarrassing. Surely word would get about rapidly.

Wining

It occurred to me this evening that one's level of impatience varies depending on the task in hand, sometimes minute to minute. I poured the last half glass of wine into my son's glass (having filled my own, twice - over the course of an hour or so; I wouldn't want to give the impression I had downed the first measure in a gulp) and went to fetch another out of the fridge. As I walked towards the corkscrew, I weaved sideways to retrieve the cork from bottle 1. I knew, you see, that I'd left the cork from that bottle in the corkscrew the night before and whilst I was quite happy, as part of the pre-drinking ritual, to unscrew it, I would not bother to do so immediately after opening the new bottle. So the old cork went into the part-emptied bottle. And, I realise, I do that almost every time.

At least it was a real cork. I know they are a bit unreliable and a corked bottle is deeply unpleasant, but I can't take to plastic corks at all and they are not exactly the mark of a fine wine. Screw caps are ok, but sometimes the scored part doesn't sever and the whole cap turns round and round and my little hands can't break the seal and I have to resort to the point of a knife.

The corkscrew is nice. It's Victorian and the design is still in use, the sort where, as you screw in, arms come up at the sides which you then push down again to force the cork out. It belonged to my grandfather and presumably a genteration or two before that and still works perfectly after all these years and bottles. My other Victorian ones are simply screw in and pull hard types, which gives a certain satisfaction when keen for a drink, but you risk being thwarted by a tight cork and having to pass it round the whole family as a test of strength or thirst.

Last night, the wine and biscuits went down very well and enlivened the meeting considerably. I think I have now committed myself to providing alcohol as well as coffee each time. We will have to be careful not to appoint a teetotal Rector next time, or at any rate, not one who disapproves of the fermented grape.

Mood music - if you weren't in a bad mood before you heard it..........

What's up with Radio 3? This morning, as I was driving to the dentist, it was playing variations on Yankee Doodle. 9 variations - one would have been more than enough - on the harpsichord. Written soon after the original tune was, apparently, whenever that was. It was the most deeply boring but at the same time intensely irritating noise you can imagine. Then, this afternoon, I switched on - briefly - to find the 'It's a Knock-Out' theme being played - why? It's Radio 3. When the announcers came on afterwards it became apparent that the programme was aimed at children. They didn't say so, they had an archly bickering conversation, ploddingly obviously talking not to each other but down to the radio audience. If you want to attract small children to a classical music channel, surely you play appropriate good music and treat them as people, not idiots.

I've been reading Victorian London, by Liza Picard, whose books I have so enjoyed over the last few years. She writes social histories of London at specific different periods and this is the latest and, it seems, the last. It's the sort of book you can't resist reading out vignettes from, to whoever else is in the room, and since this is no fun at all for the listener I try to be considerate and read while alone.

A meeting tonight at the parish church room. I spoil that committee. Normally they get coffee and sweets - jelly babies, Minstrels and Maltesers are the most requested. Tonight they are having wine and cheesy biscuits as well as it's the present Rector's last meeting. In the next 10 days he will have 6 farewell parties. I think he will need his promised month's sabbatical to let his liver recover - well, it'll be Lent by then so he can gain points in St Peter's book for abstinence as well as recover from the excesses inflicted by parishioners determined to party to the last.

Turn it off and on again

We are polite, as a family, on the whole, so when I annoyed my son tonight, it was not deliberately and his protest was a mild one. I tried to open a file dating back 6 years which had apparently become corrupted in its transference from old iMac to new a few months ago. Wailing self-pityingly (it was a huge valuation which would take ages to redo), he gently said 'I'll come and help if you like, but I do get this all day you know'. And yes indeed, it is the first thing they ask in IT support (have you turned it off and on again) because, as you know if you don't have the luxury of a technician, that's all that is needed most of the time.

Anyway, he did get the text up for me, but if - IF - my Other Half can find a printout of the original, it will be easier to go from that. Since the local council is even more strapped for cash than it was in 2000, they may not even go for a revaluation, but if they do, I'll be ready for them.

A friend rang tonight to ask me to email members of the committee of which she is secretary and I am chairman (I don't go for chairwoman, chairperson or chair; chairman is in such an instance gender neutral). Her internet connection is down for a few days - going on to Broadband is only straightforward if someone in the family has some idea what they are doing (thank you son). She was audibly overanxious and I sympathised. A few years ago I wouldn't care if I did not check emails for a week. Now I could not possibly last a day. If I haven't answered within 24 hours I get anxious enquiries about my health - 'there must be something wrong, you are so efficient'. No I'm not efficient, it's just the strangely compulsive nature of emails, and the knowledge that if they disappear down a page or two you will never look at them or remember them again. So Do It Now! But why?

On the other hand, nice to know people care. Even if you do have to leave their emails unanswered to find out.

Cross dogs

Apparently 'novelty cross-bred' dogs are now fashionable. Like occasional 'smart' trends for apple crumble and bread-and-butter-pudding, this one never went away here in the countryside, where the sight of happily procreating dogs is not that unusual around the local meadows. Apparently, stars such as Julianne Moore and Jake Gyllenhaal have puggles; a cross between a pug and a beagle. Much of the point of this seems to be the entertainment of making up a new name which combines that of both the parents' breeds; labradoodles and the like. Hm. Anyway, didn't the Queen do that decades ago with her dorgies - dachsundsxcorgies?

My late lamented bearded collie/Irish setter cross and still, happy to say with us, whippet and something cross was/is a good deal healthier than most pedigrees. Anyway, whyever would I want an animal with a more upmarket family background than my own? Which has inbred health problems into the bargain.

I am on the lookout for a puppy to replace late dog, but am in no hurry and have simply put the word out in the next village. No terriers (because there are fields all around and I don't want to keep having to haul it out of rabbit holes), no Springer spaniels (not ideal as just pets, better as working dogs and need loads of exercise), nothing too small (I'm clumsy and will trip over it, I'd as soon not fatally crush it), nothing enormous (I want to be stronger than the dog) and no greyhounds (I inherited my mother's greyhound. Sweet nature but just not my sort of dog).

Scissors, paper - and Stones

A friend cuts out snippets from newspapers and sends them to me every so often. Always enjoyable, sometimes thought-provoking and sometimes amusing. One, just before Christmas, was a mystery of obfuscation, to which he had appended a note 'makes you think'. I wrote back, hope you didn't understand it either or else I'm dim. Fortunately, the awfulness of the pretension was what had appealed to him too.

Today's batch contained an article about Stonehenge, which, not that he knew it, I visited as a child and often pass by. I was glad when the cost of the tunnel by Stonehenge spiralled and caused the project to be abandoned. I have not visited since the barriers went up years ago; the point to me of Stonehenge is to wander around, no need to touch and so erode the stones, but to be close enough to 'feel' them. To park at a truly crappy Visitors’ Centre over the road and then be roped well away from the stones seems more than pointless, and so does an artificial Stonehenge Experience – they just are, and that’s enough for me. Second best is to drive past and be uplifted by a casual glance as one slogs down the A303. And know that one is only half an hour (given good luck and no hold-ups) from a more practically uplifting cup of tea or G&T with my sister.

Embarrassment, one way and another

Still shopkeeping. Young man came in for a potato to bake. It would be the first potato he had ever baked for himself. I enthused and reminded him to pierce it so that it wouldn't explode. We agreed that raw vegetables are more delicious than cooked, except potato.

Later a customer came in asking for a fruit basket - 'I'll wait' she said cheerily. Had to explain that I have never done one before (son's speciality) and so she watched me with interest and amusement. Filled basket prettily, cut cellophane, secured with rubber band, trimmed cellophane, reached for sticky tape to fasten. Rubber band pinged into the air of course, so I had to start again, this time with assistance of customer. Eventually done and decorated with purple bow and she left good-humouredly to visit her friend in hospital.

Then had another customer who evidently found me a sympathetic listener as he decided to tell me about the problems he had had in his younger days with finding a girlfriend. At any rate, having found her, keeping her happy. I discovered far more about his lack-of-sex life than I expected or wanted to. Not to mention The Girl Who Changed It All but who chucked him out a week later because he didn't like her cageful of pet mice in the kitchen and said so.

I seem to have offered to throw a farewell party for the Rector on Saturday week. I have issued a general invitation to the village and so have not the faintest idea how many will turn up. I suppose that the important thing will be to have plenty of alcohol available, although if only a dozen arrive then they will have to eat all the food that I will have worriedly got up at 5 a.m. to prepare. Even though I've airily said that 'a glass of wine and a sausage roll' will be what they will get, no one will believe me.