It was inevitable we’d be late. We always are. We were due at Sal and Dan’s by six but after wrapping Dan’s birthday presents and making a detour by way of Sainsburys for some Quorn to put on the barbeque it was closer to seven when we arrived.

By then, the sun had come out after a long cloudy day, and as long as you stood by the coals it was a fairly pleasant temperature. Dan’s friend Scott took care of the meat cooking, while I fiddled around with the vegetarian options, played with the cat and spilt red Ame all over my new t-shirt.

Oscar was prowling the garden, alternately crouching in the bushes and stretching out by the pond, which was so full of tadpoles that you could hear them splashing the surface of the water. The fur on the end of his tail is still very short from where he got into a fight with one of the other neighbourhood cats and the vet had to take off the end. He looks like one of those balloon animals that have a little bit of uninflated balloon left at the end.

I had an enlightening conversation with some teachers. Sue has the Ofstead inspectors coming to her school next week, so she’s been warming herself up with fake tan. This led to a general discussion of how teachers make a good impression, and the fact that you should always wear bright nail varnish for parents evening. That way, apparently, the parents stare at your fingers while you point things out more than they listen to what you’re saying.

We left at one, not long after Dan had blown out the candles on his Scooby Do birthday cake, and flopped into bed. I was exhausted. Weekends take it out of me far more that weekdays. The roads were quiet so we made it home in under an hour. Not bad, considering the last time we visited Sal it took over three hours just to get there.

Even so, I was up at an admirably respectable hour this morning. I gave myself a well-overdue haircut then set about putting the flat straight. Hoovered, dusted, worked my steadily to the bottom of the washing basket, and even threw in my coat into the machine for good measure (and to get rid of the jelly stains). I’ve since found some more on my shoes. Is there anywhere that jelly didn’t get?

Paul came around shortly after lunch and we drove out to Maldon to enjoy the sun. The weather was fantastic, and after a walk around the closed town it was even warm enough to lay on the grass by the bathing lake. I drifted off for a few minutes, in spite of the screaming kids and only woke up when something black with six or eight legs ran across my arm. Paul said we’d only been there 25 minutes, so I can’t have been asleep for more than five or ten, but it perked me up and I made me very relaxed.

Trevor and Jon called on Paul’s mobile and invited us around for tea and posh cakes. When we arrived we found the neighbourhood fat cat squatting on their doorstep, itching to get inside and steal Boris and Ginny’s tea. I held it back as we scooted in, then flopped into a chair and sipped tea.

I’m off to Mark’s annual Eurovision party next Saturday, so the three of them made vague plans for dinner and pubs in London that night. I’ll eat at Mark’s, using his tried and tested Euro-themed menu. Each attendee (of which there are twelve) is assigned two Eurovision-contestant countries and must bring food to represent one of them. I have Denmark and Turkey, so will probably opt for meat-free bacon sandwiches (Danish bacon).

Whoever has Malta will inevitably bring along Maltesers. It happens every year.

If I was putting money on the contest, I’d still have Estonia down as the winners. The poll on the official site currently has the terrible, terrible Spainish in the lead by a very long way at the moment, though. Turkey comes second, but it’s barely ahead of Estonia in third place.

Slovenia, which deserves some points merely for the fact that the singers are three guys dressed as air stewardesses, complete with bad wigs and thick make-up, is doing very poorly indeed.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 19th, 2002 at 10:53 am and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.