Saturday night was a fairly typical one for us. We had been invited up to our friends house for a drink. It's generally bring a bottle, sometimes we have supper too or order a takeaway.
Our friends, like us, had been busy all day. I had spent two hours with my friend Rachel sorting out the flower arrangements in church - and yes I am aware how middle-aged that sounds.
We had renamed ourselves Muriel and Maud (and occasionally Mavis when I forgot who we were supposed to be) for the occasion- they seemed like better names for church flower arrangers - and there was lots of cackling as Rachel pruned trees for greenery for the arrangements and loaded them into the already overloaded arms of her "flower b*tch" (me) much to the amusement? bemusement? of the workmen and wandering tourists in our churchyard. Much was made of the fact that I am considerably shorter than my friend.
We completed five arrangements and were about to clear up when we spotted a sixth arrangement base. Rude words were spoken out loud. We are hoping visitors don't look too closely at the display we proudly named "cuttings and cr*p we picked up off the floor."
And so to Saturday evening when Muriel and Mavis (Or am I Maud?) finally had time to relax with the menfolk. Wine, tea, crisps all tasted good in their beautiful typically English country garden in the late afternoon sunshine, and as the sun went down and we got peckish our friends lit a candle and chucked a bag of chips in the oven to cook. We wolfed them down with salt, vinegar, ketchup and mayo all out of one big bowl.
To me it was perfect because the real friends are the ones you don't have to tidy up for, dress up for, prepare elaborate meals for. You can of course and that's fun too. But Saturday night with our cheap wine and oven chips went perfectly with the usual insults and in-jokes which prove to us we have really good friends.
