Authie et Mi

I am too old for this !

26th April 2014

Did I really say that Jason could invite some friends over for the weekend ? He assures me that I did—was that the day he bought the bottle of malt ?

The weekend was organised and initially, because we do not have a lot of sleeping space, it was just going to be Jeremy and his girlfriend Hermaline. Jason has spent a couple of weekends with them and they appear to be really nice youngsters (That statement does not come officially stamped and approved by their respective parents).

However another of his mates, Pierre, works just up the road in Auxi, so he was added to the list because he could call in on the way home from work. That Pierre doesn’t work Saturdays obviously slipped Jason’s mind and caused some interesting confusion in text messages.

Jason set the price tag on the weekend and we talked food and drink. It was being pretty much left to me with the one proviso—banoffee was going to be one of the puddings.

The evening passed by in a most civilised fashion. Everyone was on time and not the traditional French fifteen minutes late (It is considered impolite in France to actually turn up at the hour requested in the invitation—I don’t in any case. I was taught to arrive ten minutes early ! ).

So, stick four young people together and what do they do. Get on their mobile phones. Fortunately for the evening, the Internet went down (No Jason I didn’t switch it off deliberately, though I was sorely tempted) and mobile reception is rubbish. So they swapped photos, talked about friends/enemies from college and had a few beers.

Dinner was served. Jason knows how to eat well, whilst his friends have that awful ‘ we go to the gym’ look about them. It’s not natural; you go to a gym, not to work out, but to work up: a good appetite.

I can’t possibly eat all of that: ‘course you can. Get it in ye !

Then the puddings. I was a bit worried about the quantity of flour—no I wasn’t but that’s a line from Dickens that I have been waiting to use these years. That morning, Jason had looked after the banoffee pie whilst I prepared an alternative for thems what doesn’t like fruit : a recipe I had found in my beer magazine. A rich (we are talking owner of Chelsea FC type rich) chocolate cake that uses Guinness as its fluid base. It then gets doused with melted black cherry jam and topped with whipped cream.

I can hear my mother dribbling, even as I type.

We retired to comfy seats and some had difficulty staying awake, so music was played at a very high volume. Then Jason’s PS3 console was switched on and the boys got down to some serious zombie killing.

Five in the morning was soon upon us and the zombies joined the other zombies and went to bed. Much to my surprise everyone was awake by ten o’clock. Nobody had been ill. Everybody remembered who they were and they were all still friends. Obviously a rubbish evening !


Posted : 28 April 2014

House, Visitors