...feeding the 5,000...
Muma can cook, Muma likes entertaining, the house is big enough to entertain the masses all at once. So once again the apron was on, the sleeves were rolled up and the kitchen surfaces were full. We were feeding 45 for dinner on Saturday night after...
...Gilbert & Sullivan...
I love these guys. I was brought up with Dad singing them all the time. My memory for lyrics hasn't helped as I can do a whole load of them by heart and can't help mouthing along whenever I hear them. We had a great mix from 'The Sorcerer' including 'My name is John Wellington Wells, I'm a dealer in magic and spells...' one of the great
patter songs; 'Ruddigore' with 'I once was a very abandoned person...'; 'The Pirates of Penzance' complete with '...his sisters and his cousins and his aunts...'; the whole of 'Trial by Jury' (which only lasts half an hour) which has one of the best lines ever '...the judge's eldery ugly daughter, who may very well pass for 43, in the dusk, with the light behind her.'; and an abridged version of 'Iolanthe' which is definitly one of my favourites and includes 'The Nightmare Song', another of the patters. It is so clever, so clever I'm afraid I feel the need to include the lyrics here:
When you're lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo'd by anxiety, I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety; For your brain is on fire--the bedclothes conspire of usual slumber to plunder you: First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you; Then the blanketing tickles--you feel like mixed pickles--so terribly sharp is the pricking, And you're hot, and you're cross, and you tumble and toss till there's nothing 'twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick 'em all up in a tangle; Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!
Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eye-balls and head ever aching. But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you'd very much better be waking;
For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich--Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second-class carriage--And you're giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of friends and relations--They're a ravenous horde--and they all came on board at Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that morning from Devon); He's a bit undersized, and you don't feel surprised when he tells you he's only eleven. Well, you're driving like mad with this singular lad (by the by, the ship's now a four-wheeler), And you're playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer";
But this you can't stand, so you throw up your hand, and you find you're as cold as an icicle, In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks), crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:
And he and the crew are on bicycles too--which they've somehow or other invested in--And he's telling the tars all the particulars of a company he's interested in--It's a scheme of devices, to get at low prices all goods from cough mixtures to cables (Which tickled the sailors), by treating retailers as though they were all vegetables--You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman (first take off his boots with a boot-tree), And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot, and they'll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree--From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green pea, cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries, While the pastrycook plant cherry brandy will grant, apple puffs, and three corners, and Banburys.
The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by Rothschild and Baring, And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake with a shudder despairing.
You're a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head's on the floor, and you've needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg's asleep, and you've cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, and a thirst that's intense, and a general sense that you haven't been sleeping in clover;
But the darkness has passed, and it's daylight at last, and the night has been long--ditto ditto my song--and thank goodness they're both of them over!
...wimbledon...
Henman won thankfully, but I honestly thought in the first set that his opponent deserved to win - he was playing much better tennis.
...washing up...
Post dinner for 45 there is, unsurprisingly, a lot of washing up. So we set to this morning and the dishwasher certainly earned its keep. However it is an old dishwasher and does not like doing glasses so those all had to be done by hand as do Muma's posh coffee cups so no rest for us either. Anyway all is washed, dried, put away and ready for the next one... Apparently we have the Russian Singers (who are EXCELLENT) coming back in October. This only involves
hot dinner for 150 - a synch for us old hands!
...'So, how is life?'...
A question I don't think my Mother has ever asked before. At least not in those words.
So I talked about my job, my flat and me & Warren. In that order.
This will lead my Mother to believe that Warren is not as much of a threat to her (daughter's) social standing as she worries he might be. She is wrong. I spoke about him last because I am only too well aware of her concerns and after only a few hours sleep I really wasn't in the mood for her hang-ups.
...flowers...
A lovely thing to come home to: flowers from a loved one. Or at least from a loved one's Father! All above board I am assured as all company partners partners' received a bunch! Thanks Malcolm, they are beautiful.
/0FEE82BEEA57578880256F990073E168/$FILE/thinks.JPG)
