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Monday, October 17, 2011

There's nothing more civilised than Sunday afternoon tea with your best bone china...

Tea Time
You'd never guess she was wearing her cousin's pants and smelling faintly of urine.

We were invited round for Sunday lunch yesterday by our good friends Stefan and Andrew. It was our second lunch date of the day. We'd already been invited over to Portslade to eat out with a couple of cats. So having dressed Amelie in a cute new outfit (age 4-5, obviously) we hit the road for West Hove, on a mission to fix the feline famine with a pouch or two of Whiskas.

It was ten minutes into our journey when we heard the words "Oh no" coming from the back of the car. We responded with an optimistic "What?", which produced the reply "My seat's wet". I won't go into details, but suffice it to say, it wasn't a leak in the sunroof.

Once at Lisa's sister's house, I fed the starving cats, while Lisa removed Amelie's gorgeous tights, took off her pretty underwear, then dressed her in a pair of her 5-year-old (male) cousin's pants, and put her boots back on with no socks. She then rode to Stefan and Andrew's on a pile of kitchen roll. It wasn't quite the stylish arrival we'd anticipated, but hey, we knew our hosts were unlikely to dress for dinner...

Dress Down SundayAlthough Andrew had made a bit of an effort. That's not him, obviously. That's just a well-dressed dummy. And standing behind her is a mannequin.

Anyhoo, it's been stated on this blog many times that meeting up with Stefan & Andrew is a bit like visiting a cash & carry. But without the cash. They gave us so many free gifts yesterday that I felt like I was playing 'Double or Drop' on Crackerjack. Andrew's got so many boxes of cut-price goodies stashed away in that flat, it feels like you're having lunch with Del Boy.

The finest of the gifts we received yesterday was the miniature china tea set in the photo above. It's probably 'china' as in 'made in', but it's the perfect size for Amelie, and before we knew it, she was making strawberry redbush tea for us all. She already knows how to open the biscuit tin, so I just need to teach her to boil the kettle, and we'll be living the life of Riley. Or Tetley.

To be honest though, I think she prefers cold beverages. Having asked for "a real drink" (I don't know where she gets these phrases), she was handed a glass of cactus juice (no, really), complete with a couple of ice cubes. It began a three-hour-long love affair with frozen water. By the end of the afternoon she'd eaten so many ice cubes, she was like Hansel & Gretel in an igloo.

So with pre-dinner drinks downed, it was onto lunch. Here's Andrew's sister Nora (who was invited over mainly for her gravy-making skills) showing the ice queen how they use a knife and fork in Canada...


Wrongly, judging by that photo.

But if they struggle with cutlery, Canadians sure know how to make a pumpkin pie. Andrew produced the finest home-made pie I've ever tasted. And I've tasted Lisa's cottage. It was so good, I had to have second helpings, just to confirm I wasn't dreaming. Obviously I'm on a strict diet at the moment, but I'm allowed as much fruit and veg as I like, and I'm sure my third of a pie was about four of my five a day.

Having eaten her dessert with a spoon that Andrew stole from Pizza Express, Amelie retired to the drawing room...

Drawing Room
That's Stefan politely pointing out that she was colouring the elephants green. I don't think she was that bothered.

So while Amelie relaxed on the sofa, Lisa and I continued to see what gifts we could extract from our hosts. The answer, in case you're wondering, was a glass cafetiere and a lava lamp. It felt like a 1970s game show. The star prize, however, went to Nora, who received a USB record player for her birthday, and promptly started burning MP3s of Marlene Dietrich at the dinner table.

That left the rest of us free to look at old photos of Andrew riding Marvel the Mustang, while he decorated the laptop with rhinestones, and Stefan demonstrated his new gadget: a Polaroid PoGo Digital Photo Printer. It's a small handheld device which can print three-inch long, full-colour photo stickers wirelessly from a mobile phone, without ink of any kind. It's the closest you can get to magic without actually being a witch. Nora snapped a photo of us on Andrew's mobile, and within seconds, this was spewing out of Stefan's hand...

Magic!
For a 2"x3" printout of a mobile phone pic, I think that's pretty good. My photo might be slightly clearer...

Sofa Six
But you can't peel the back off and stick it on the fridge within thirty seconds of taking it. I think that's why Amelie looks so anguished.

6 comments:

Phil's Mum said...

Two lunch dates is one too many - as the Vicar of Dibley discovered - but Amelie seems to have carried it off with her usual calmness in the face of disaster and Lisa excelled herself in the ability to 'make do' and keep smiling!

A Passer-by said...

After the little problem in the car, the poster on the wall in the 3rd photo looks as if it pinned there for Amelie to read - "Keep calm and dry"!!

Dave said...

Which photo gives the most accurate colour rendition of the checked shirt?

brokenbiro said...

Which of us can honestly say we haven't arrived at (or left) a party in somebody else's pants? ... Huh? ... Oh... *blushes*

Phil said...

I haven't checked.

A Passer-by said...

To get out of cat caring responsibilities, you could pass on this article to the owners:
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/how-to-entertain-your-cat-when-youre-away.html