As mentioned in a previous blog we were invited to Bern’s sister Katherine’s 50th birthday party. Shez had gone to a great deal of trouble to keep the surprise from her mother and we dutifully went along with all the plans and managed somehow to keep the surprise party a secret.
When we arrived to put the finishing touches together, we were met by a very distraught Shez and Bern’s sister in law Janice who was hosting the party. Katherine’s fiancé had let the cat out of the bag. We had put so much effort into keep the secret that it is understandable that we were ready to lynch him.
Victor (not his real name) Katherine’s fiancée had hired an acquaintance to do the Sheep on a spit and they had been preparing the meat all afternoon. The beers flowed and the job was coming along very nicely until he realized he was late to fetch Katherine
When Katherine arrived she explained that she gave him no choice. He was late in fetching her from Bingo and she was convinced he was being unfaithful or up to no good and the smell of beer on his breath was enough to set her off in a tangent.
He of course would not offer an explanation and this made her even angrier. She stopped the car which she was driving, told him to get out the car and walk home as this would give her time to pack his possessions and he could arrange to have them collected.
She was standing on the street outside her car blasting him and he is such a gentle soul and he did not want to ruin the surprise for her. She was sure that he had been up to no good as he vehemently denied doing anything wrong but could not offer a reasonable excuse. He eventually told her that he had been busy with her surprise birthday celebration and now he would have to face the wrath of the extended family.
The evening was beautiful except for the caterers who decided that they now were to be part of the celebration. They just took over and tried to tell Janice the hostess of the party how to present the food she was preparing and the seating arrangements and how to save the left over sheep.
Now Janice is not only an accomplished woman in her own rights, she has hosted many a function and has thrown together parties the likes of we have never seen.
After one too many altercations with the Caterer’s wife who was also trying to convert everyone to her particular beliefs and telling her she was warming up the other dishes incorrectly and that her table setting were wrong, Janice had just about had enough.
She stormed into the Entertainment area and asked my brother Dene to open a bottle of wine for her. Dene promptly opened the wine as he could she was about to break. She was so busy explaining to us about the interference and how annoyed she was; she took a gulp of the wine out of the bottle. We noticed this but decided not to comment as this may have seemed rude.
However my Brother Dene who has a sharp wit said
“Would you like some Ice with That?”
Well that broke the tension and she realized what she had been doing and laughed and proceeded to pour the wine into a very large glass. She was mortified as she was sure her mother-in-law had seen her drink out the bottle like a common person.
A few years back we had popped in for a glass of wine at Bern’s brother’s house and Bern and Janice were enjoying the banter so the party carried on at our house as her hubby Michael was studying and she was so sick of being alone.
She dutifully brought her box wine which was ½ full and she and Bern got stuck in. I was not participating I was just watching. They reminisced about the good old days when Bern was still in junior school and about the family and the battles they have faced and before they knew it the box wine was finished.
Imagine my horror when they decided to open up a case of exclusive wines we had been given as a gift. You know the type of wine that you savour the smoothness and the clarity and the smell? Well this was not to be the case now; I am sure they could have had vinegar and not noticed the difference. My argument was, not that they drank the wine; it was that they did not start with the good stuff so they could appreciate it! Not they started on the plonk and when their taste buds were dead, they moved to the quality collectors wine – the Good Stuff.
The managed to put quite a dent in our collection. This visit had turned into a 6 hour visit into the very early hours of the morning. Janice was now ready to leave; she picked up her hand bag, spotted a packet of tomatoes we had just bought for the family.
Promptly put this under her arm as well and said
“Oh I need tomatoes!” and walked out to her car.
Bern and I were in shock and very amused and watched her drive off with our tomatoes.
The next morning when she got into her car, she could not understand why she had tomatoes in her car when she was on the way to the shops to go and buy some for her salads!
We tease her about this all the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment