Sunday, October 01, 2006

Party Old-Biddy

We were invited to a party last Friday. A surprise 40th. It took place at the end of a particularly hard week and I was shattered; with the prospect of dealing with my eldest's birthday party the following day.

Parties are few and far between in my neck of the woods. Before this one, the last one I went to was my own, and before that... the First Friday parties held by a friend of mine. Not really parties, but more 'hearty aperos'.

It goes without saying that I had been invited to two events on the same night. Parties are very much like buses: you don't see one for months, and when you do get an invitation, you can guarantee that you'll get another for the same day. Thus it was for last Friday when we were also invited to a pub evening with Ethan Pierse. Makes me think of attracting bodies. Not ones that are 34-28-34, but magnetic-type ones which dictate that two cars approaching one another will cross at the most inauspicious point like a narrow bridge or between two wobbly cyclists.

Anyway, I provided a red herring by way of a drink at my house for the hostess and birthday boy, so the guests could arrive at birthday boy's house and secrete themselves. BB did not suspect a thing! After kicking them out at 7.15pm precisely claiming a previous engagement we followed them at a discreet distance which meant that we also arrived after the event SURPRISE!!! but this, in my comatosed state, was not a problem.

I was particularly delighted to see a few very great friends, connected with work and spent the entire evening catching up, exchanging news, and having a lovely friendly jolly time. I'm afraid to say I mingled not in the slightest. I had no desire to mingle, was not inspired to mingle and thus did not mingle. Maybe it's my age, but I've got past the state where I don't want to make smalltalk to strangers when I could be having a fascinating time with friends.

BB did rebuke us a tad, but to no avail. In any case, the other group (of neighbours) were all smoking like chimneys outside on the terrace (being French), and the rest of us were highly unenthused at the prospect of becoming passive smokers amongst people we didn't know. I mean, if you're gonna passive smoke, it had better be either with a very attractive, highly skillful lover, or someone who's company you cannot do without. There aren't many who fall into either of those categories.

The result of such unsociable behaviour was that I had a lovely time, but really, there was no need to go the trouble of having a party. Just a cosy get-together would have been perfect.

I think, maybe, I'm heading towards old-biddyhood...

The slippery slope?

2 comments:

  1. Shame you didn't make it to the Ethan Pierse networking evening, would have been fun to see you (a familiar face) there!

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  2. Well, we will probably go to the next one in November, so see you then!

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