Well the dinner party was a complete shambles. Nothing went right - one is almost tempted to say that everything went wrong, but one is British and must maintain one's sunny outlook on life through thick and thin sauces and mousses. You'll remember I mentioned the nice little forin man from the village who was going to get the goose liver paté for Gerald and I? Shocking. He telephones me early this morning whilst Gerald and I are enjoying our early morning cuddle and says in his outrageous little accent that he can't get any goose liver paté until next Wednesday, and would we like half a case of Blackjacks and Rhubarb and Custards instead, whatever they are. He even attempted to besmirch my good name by offering me a bribe of Delia's latest opus as well. "My good man," I said to him, whilst smiling wryly at the irony that he was no longer mine, nor good, nor if the rumours are to be believed, a man. "My good man, your offer would be a tempting one if not for the fact that I already possess a copy of Delia's Cooking For Retards, signed by St. Delia when she was on her whirlwind tour of the John Lewis' of Sussex and Surrey last September." And with that I hung up, and so began my worries for the day.
Gerald is such a darling. Do you know what he did next? Even though it was Sunday, and he had his plans to call in on his mistress and their son, he could see how much the dinner party meant to me and he promised to find me some goose liver paté whatever the cost. He said he'd be able to get me the freshest goose liver paté possible, but I wasn't to ask any questions, and I certainly wasn't to answer any questions if anyone came a-asking. Tsk, his grammar's atrocious. Doesn't he know it's an-asking? It's the sweet little mistakes that remind me how much I love him I suppose.
With the weight of the goose liver paté firmly off my shoulders, and on to Gerald's soul, I was sure everything would go smoothly. How wrong I was: Gerald's been breeding spiders, just ordinary domestic spiders in the corner of the larder; it's a veritable web of spider's webs in there, believe you me! Like a fool I was still wearing my Teletubby novelty slippers that Gerald bought for me for a joke last Easter; they're fine everywhere else in the house, but the spiders prefer the floor of the larder to be Teflon, and so with me forgetting to wear my plastic soled hiking boots, I took the spill of spills, spraying the brown rice everywhere. Quickly fusing my shattered pelvis together with a top secret invention that Gerald's been working on in his spare time, I set to work picking the brown rice from the spiders' webs. Not an easy task at all. I wittily commented to myself that it was like picking brown rice from sticky threads of cotton weaved by tiny land-based octopuses; I only wish someone had been around to hear the speed at which I expounded aforementioned witticism.
I managed to get the brown rice boiling on the Aga with only fourteen hours to spare until our guests started arriving - they'll just have to put up with it being slightly underdone I thought; it turns out they'd have more to complain about. Gerald rushed into the house covered with blood and feathers, but clutching the most wonderful tub of goose liver paté. Once he'd showered, I would kiss him, I thought to myself. There was no time for any of that though, for Gerald slammed the door quickly behind him, bolted it and hid behind the sofa. Joining him as any good wife would do, he hissed at me to be quiet. The banging on the door by Gerald's pursuers was quickly silenced when the pilot of Flight 928 from Heathrow to Bangkok saw fit to take his eyes of his instruments and plough straight through the upper storey of our house, killing two of our children and getting poor, sweet King Charles, our beloved King Charles spaniel, caught in the undercarriage to be whisked away to sunnier climes, or to freeze solid up in the clouds and plummet down to earth crushing a small baby in a pram somewhere over the English Channel.
"Gosh," I exclaimed as I descended into a fit of tears that could only be controlled by a cocktail of warfarin and whatever the drug is for the severest forms of mental illness. "It's just one thing after another isn't it? You know, sometimes I wonder what the point of having dinner parties is if things like this happen every single time."