Party People

My up until now solid schedule for these here postings seems to be out of the window.  Having missed my Sunday slot for two weeks on the trot now, I shall have to make an extra special effort.  In my defense, last Sunday I was undertaking some serious rest and recuperation.  The sense of relief I was feeling on Sunday hadn’t been known since that post curry “gas release” which for an awful second may have been something more substantial, but wasn’t.

The whole of last week was a build up to Rebecca’s long-awaited (by her) 14th birthday party.  You may think us insane to agree to such a thing, but her original request was for a more formal bash, heavily influenced by those ridiculous Sweet Sixteen things on MTV.  You know, the ones where you end up spitting bile and vitriol at the TV due to the arrogance, ignorance and avarice of the youngster involved.  Having checked out similar yet less gaudy options we quickly realised that a good old house party would be equally acceptable.

There then followed literally weeks of planning, mainly from Rebecca, where lists were drawn up of who was in and out, a facebook page was created, and endless iPod playlists were created with the appropriate “tuneage”.  I have to say I did not share the same level of anticipation and excitement.

So after spending all Saturday going to the vets with the dog, getting my hair cut and then wrestling furniture into safer places, with Louise picking up the cake, balloons, and by the looks of the bank account, hiring Lady Gaga to perform, we looked somewhere near ready, and my loins were girded appropriately.

As the first guests started to arrive, we began the prep of the extensive menu of refreshments (nibbles and pizza!), which meant we were hanging around the kitchen for the first half hour or so to witness all that lovely awkward early party stuff where people wonder where to sit and stand, and avoid eye contact with each other.  I wore my slippers for the occasion, which Rebecca no doubt appreciated.

Soon though the number of teens in my house became too much, and I grabbed the dog, and with Louise made a swift escape into the relative sanity of our bedroom.  From which we then enjoyed the next three or four hours of unintelligible bass lines, girly gossip (my God teenage girls are bitchy) and thankfully a lot of laughter.  We did pop out briefly at certain points during the night, but the sheer amount of sweaty teenagers, mess and destruction around the place drove us back into our bunker very quickly.

At around 10pm we gathered everyone together for the singing of Happy Birthday.  This was something I suspected Rebecca to be too cool for, but no, she insisted!!

I have to say we were astounded that as the evening came to an end, there was a complete absence of the expected queue of parents at the front door to pick their kids up.  Most were calling for taxis, or walking home, and we do not live within five minutes of most of these, more like a forty minute walk.  There is NO WAY either of mine would be in a taxi or walking at that time!!  Sometimes I wonder if we are smothering our two, but, it just would not happen!!  Earlier in the day, one parent had refused to come out at 11pm on a Saturday to pick up his 14-year-old daughter, so told her to ask if she could sleep here, or she couldn’t go.  Honestly, I find some folk hard to comprehend!!

So, with those staying over making too much noise upstairs, we began the tidy up, and we were pleased to see no real damage.  There was lots of mess though, but I’d have happily settled for that prior to the event.  An hour of work saw the house nearly back to normal, and the worst of the damage was that some clown had taken four or five bananas and mashed them up in the kitchen.  Oh, and some prat had changed all the settings on the freezer so it went into Power Freeze.  Minor annoyances which I am glad I did not witness as I don’t like prison food.

The noise from upstairs continued into the early hours, but it ended just as my patience did, after I had a quiet word!

So you see, Sunday was a relaxed affair, with lots of football watching by me, and Rebecca even made our tea.  This was not some sort of thank you for the party, it was simply that Louise was ironing and I was watching football and she was hungry.  There are benefits to your kids getting to a certain age!

I did go for a walk on Sunday, on my usual route, and said hello to some of the wild life there.  Last week it was young cows, and this week the two donkeys were out and about.  I don’t know about dolphins being intelligent, but as soon as he saw me start to take a photo he just started showing off.  To be fair, with that “talent” so would I!!

So we come to this week, with a full five days of horror to endure, one of which sees me in London, well Wimbledon to be exact, for a meeting I don’t want to go to.  Work is like that I find.

Till the next time….