Today's post is brought to you by the letter.......

(do you remember Sesame Street.....?)

 then read on......

The bank holiday weekend was a busy one for us, as was the last week too. I guess this is our busiest time of year, the cricket is in full flow and from now until July the school matches for Number 2 son are added into the mix.

On Saturday Number 1 son played for the club 1st team locally and I was on taxi duty, Number 2 son and The Builder were in the 2nd team playing away....somewhere in Norfolk (I feel sure they told me where....)

But our village also hosted a boat show; I don't have a huge interest in boats or sailing despite living a stone's throw from a huge network of rivers and lakes (The Norfolk Broads). However it was billed as a huge event for our little village and the weather was very kind.

Little Miss cycled and I walked to the village green (she was on a promise of a chocolate ice-cream) and I had seen the signs for the paella party! The paella was good, not very warm, but tasty and prepared on the spot by our local deli - a super place for cream teas and plenty of other goodies.

Sadly the ice-cream shop had sold out of chocolate so cue one very miserable face and some dragging of feet!
Anyway we finished the day baking and planting a few garden pots, so it ended ok.

Sunday dawned and what a beautiful sunny day it promised to be - my flip flops made their first outing of the year. All 3 men were playing at the club so no transport was needed but we did agree to go and watch. We arrived at the ground just in time for the lunch leftovers, accidentally of course!
 I we managed to help clear away the quiche, new potatoes, salad, French bread, apple cobbler, cheesecake.... sadly I missed the cricket as I was busy filling my face! - Just helping out you understand!

A rare photo, no one's fighting!

As it was a more important match than usual a fabulous spread was provided which included a lunch and a tea, unfortunately the team didn't do very well and the match ended earlier than expected so tea was served an hour after lunch! They needed my help to clear it away again, happy to oblige!
We also got to meet this years overseas player/coach who is here from New Zealand for the season, with his young family, Little Miss was very taken with his 2 son's and is volunteer babysitter for the summer!

As Monday was a bank holiday and no cricket was planned (unusually) we decided on an impromptu barbecue and threw a few invites out to friends. It was a lovely warm day and was so good to see the kids, or more accurately the boys, not glued to a handset or screen! Cricket and table tennis was played in the garden and we had such a good time with friends,

a fair amount of wine was consumed also!

 

We used to have regular dinner parties with some of the friends but these have dwindled to nothing over the past couple of years; however we started to reminisce! We once held a dinner party themed on "1979", everyone had to arrived dressed accordingly for the evening, we had punks, a glamrocker, Mrs Thatcher and Margot & Gerry Leadbetter (the Good Life). They arrived to enjoy nibbles such as Twiglets, cheesy balls and Primula cheese artistically squirted onto celery (remember??). And drank a little Sherry to start. We dined on Prawn cocktail, steak Diane (with onion rings & chips) and Black Forest gateaux or arctic roll for dessert.

We enjoyed a 70's soundtrack for the evening whilst drinking Babycham, Cherry B (Calpol taste a like, who knew?) and Liebfraumilch and bitter for the men!

We had the best time and we're well overdue for another, but what theme? We decided on a letter of the alphabet, can you tell we were getting through the wine at a rate of knots by now?
 After a lot of research it seems that C is the best option so we will dine on - hors d'houvres of caviar on crisps (obviously ready salted, anything else would be silly!), starter of crab and cockle cocktail followed by chicken or chickpea curry. This is served with carrots, cabbage and coleslaw, and a sumptuous dessert of cherry crumble and custard or cream. All washed down with cranberry cocktails and cobra lager and ending with cheese and crackers, coffee or cappuchino. It's sounding good I know.....
We will be wearing corsets, cricket whites and crocs - sounding less good now hey?
The soundtrack will consist of The Cure, The Clash and mellow sounds later with The Commodores!

Our W evening may not be so good though, hors d'houvres are wasabi peas and Wotsits followed by a starter winkles and welks on a bed of watercress? Weiner schnitzel with wantons  followed by wagon wheels and (Mr) Whippy ice-cream , all washed down with whiskey and water or a woo woo. Maybe that's not your kind of evening but we were a little tipsy by then!
We would be wearing windcheaters and waders and maybe a wig.

But I'm sure you won't want to join us for the letter J, I may be wrong but all we could come up with hors d'houvres of Jaffa cakes a pudding of jelly all served whilst wearing a jumper, jockstrap or a jumpsuit!

No you're right, give that evening a miss!

Anyone want to join us, go on pick a letter......