The morning after dinner with friends
Yesterday evening we invited good friends over for dinner. It was hard work, and the washing up was kind of like climbing Annapurna (which in reality I have no idea about, other than an adventure story in a boys-own-adventure-book from my childhood), but it wasworth it.
We had bought suppliesto make our own Christmas dinner as a backup plan in case any of us were ill (my father in law goes into hospital in the coming daysif any of us had gone down with anything, we would not have been able to visit). Thanks in part to me squirting “First Defence” up my nose almost every day for the last two weeks, none of us have been illso we ended up with an un-used fridge full of food. What better excuse than to surround our dinner table with 11 people ?For a few hours we forgot about the cares of the world. We laughed, told stories, ate too much, and drank too muchwhich of course is allowed at this time of year, in order to give gravitasto the new year resolutions we will fail to keep.
When we finally said our goodbyes I wandered from room to room, surveying the devastation caused by the small army of children that had re-enacted Lord of the Flies earlier in the evening. Being honest, it was nowhere near as bad as I had fearedwithin an hour I had righted the house and made it ship-shape once more.
This morning a strange calm seems to have pervaded everything and everybody. Save for two girls from across the way that predictably knocked on the door at 9:30 this morning, the house is quiet. There is a television show running in the lounge, the washing machineisn't running for the first time in living memory, and nobody is shouting, laughing, arguing, or fighting in any distant corner of the house. It's almost eerie.