7th June My friend Florence recently organised a birthday picnic bash for her husband who has been neglected of late due to the recent arrival of a baby.
I baked my current speciality, a MegaCherryFrangipane Tart and set off in the police car but the road into Florence’s village had a big hole in it, and I couldn’t pass. Roads around here will often start off as tarmac and then dwindle without warning into a narrow gravelly track before petering out altogether. Trying to find another way into the village I found myself up one of these tracks and then, in my attempt to turn the car round, ended up backing it into a ditch.
I was tantalisingly near Florence’s house so I left the tart and champagne in the car, crossed the field, pushed through a hedge and walked up the lane to the party, arriving triumphant in torn frock and hair stuck with twigs, Florence ordered the men to accompany me back to the car and get it out of the ditch. They did so in great high spirits but were a bit competitive about how to deal with the problem and managed to further entrench the car, so Florence found a jeep-owning neighbour who came and towed me out. In gratitude I handed over the MegaCherryFrangipane Tart to Jeep Man but then felt thoroughly embarrassed about first stealing the men from the party then re-arriving tartless.
I needn’t have worried, the party had improved since our disappearance, the email that David sent round a few days later includes a reassurance to his friends (who seem to be mostly in their twenties) that being 30 is fine after all, and he then goes on to thank the attendees for their contributions, including this appreciation of my piéce de théatre:
Merci à Lulu pour l'animation de l'après-midi intitulée "A car in a ditch !"
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Dessert and entertainment, a complete success! And I'm sure Jeep Man was pleased as well.
ReplyDelete30, 29, 26, it's all the same isn't it. It must be nice to be bi-lingual, is there any end to your talents?
ReplyDeleteSorry, but from where I'm standing, such angst is laughable rather than sweet or irritating: he'll soon be saying of his younger, gaucher self: "If only I knew then what I know now".
ReplyDeleteXL - Jeep Man and his wife did enjoy the tart - so yes, success
ReplyDeleteEmers - yup it feels the same in your head even a bit past 30 - and there's truly no end to my talents, you want to see me with the banjo.
Gadjo - Quite right it is laughable - but also quite irritating.
i'm so pleased it was a ditch you backed into, rather than down the side of a cliff, Lulu. good show.
ReplyDeletei hope that there were picnic tables set out under the trees, and spindly chairs to perch on and the chinking of ice in tall glasses?
at least that is how i imagine it.
and you there, stealing the show in your mini skirt and precariously high heels.
Even though you came tartless, you came through with flying colors. My you are determined aren't you?
ReplyDeleteMs Projectivist - the event was far more rufty tufty than that I'm afraid and in the presence of so much youth I had decided to go for a romantic but billowing sort of frock.
ReplyDeleteBB - Steam on regardless - that's my motto!
Like others, I continue to be impressed by your multi-talented skills. They are admirable indeed. I shall remember to carry a cake in the car for the AA man just in case I break down. Mechanically, if not emotionally.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if Cake in the Car works in non-rural areas Madame DeF.
ReplyDeleteIn town it might have to be coke!
"the party had improved since our disappearance"
ReplyDeleteStrangely, that seems to happen every time Cow disappears from a party too...
Rueful Moo!
Mrs Cow - have you been eating too much of your neighbour's lawn again?
ReplyDeleteYou will never be tartless in my eyes. What a great story and piece of theater! I found your photos of bugs very realistic. EEK!
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