Sunday lunch

Yesterday I was out all day at a work event. I set out before 8 am and wasn't back til 7 pm. It was a long day.

I woke this morning to do some Skyping with friends on the other side of the world. One in Australia and the other in South Africa. Lovely to be able to chat in real time to good friends. However all this took quite some time and we had people coming for lunch today, so at almost 11 with said people coming at 12 I rushed about the house like a mad thing.

I realised that there were quite a few essential items missing from the menu e.g. bread (we'd forgotten to make any last night), parsley for the mushroom pate, vegetables... and the list went on. Mountain Man was sent off to do a quick supermarket shop with Odi in tow, while I got on with cooking and vacuuming and trying hard to make the house look reasonably presentable.

I managed to get the mushroom pate made (minus the parsley topping), the fish pie put together and I drastically threw things into rooms our guests, Iain and Gillian, would hopefully not venture into while I waited for things to cook.

MM arrived home to a tale of Odi misbehaving in Sainsbury's after meeting her pal Mary in the veg aisle and then pooing in the crisp aisle just to make MM's day. He arrived home just as our guests arrived.

Our friends brought their 8 month old lab/collie cross pup Poppy so that Odi could have a pal to play with. MM and Iain were immediately detailed off to walk puppies while Gillian and I sat drinking fizz and getting lunch ready.

The guys returned with stories of Odi's newest fad... sitting in the pool in the field made by all the recent rain while Poppy looked on incredulously. Odi arrived home absolutely soaked through and was put into her cage to dry off and Poppy went into the spare cage while we ate.

Lunch was ok. The mushroom pate wasn't as tasty as usual and the fish pie sauce wasn't as thick as it should've been, but the company was good. Once dogs had dried they were let out to play and they seemed to enjoy their time, tho I did hope Poppy wasn't leading Odi into bad habits when she jumped onto the bench to get a closer look at the fish pie.

The big problem of drinking alcohol during the day though is that it completely blitzes me, so once Iain and Gillian had left that was me for the afternoon. Nothing more got done for the day. But given the weather was crap and Odi was exhausted from her Poppy playing session it didn't really seem to matter and, in some ways, it was a lovely way to end the week.