Thursday, January 31, 2008

Party time

Went to the party at a village hall on Saturday night. Did a lot of washing up. I mean a lot. Dinner for around 55 people is a lot of washing up but I felt obliged. There is a tradition in my family that if you go to someone's house for lunch or dinner you wash up afterwards. I think it is in small print somewhere in the Catholic housewives' handbook - "A good guest washes up after themselves". It comes somewhere between: "Do not commit adultery with the priest" and "Remember to take your temperature." After I finished scouring the last pan, I went out to the party proper and sat down with a whoomph on one of the red velveteen seats to catch my breath and admire the ceilidh dancing. I had been sitting down for about five minutes when a merrymaker came up to me and said: "Not joining in?" I felt like saying: "I am sitting down for the first time in an hour and a half. Exactly how joined in do you want me to be?" I did eventually dance. I hoisted my two-year-old daughter to balance on my boots, she reached up her arms, turned her smiling face to the skies and we walzed. Her tartan-netted party dress frothing between and around my legs, small hands in mine we twirled and turned. A mother and daughter in time. There must have been music.

13 comments:

Sarah said...

Sounds fine- you have leave to commit adultery, and leave the priest to do the washing up...

www.retiredandcrazy.com said...

I have small print in my visitors book to remind everyone that the cook does not wash up. Naturally everyone ignores it!

aims said...

The dance - how sweet.

Anonymous said...

The washing up sounds like fun.
C x

Life As I Know It said...

Sounds like fun! I hope you weren't the only one washing up!

A Mother's Place is in the Wrong said...

Darling little girl, how did she get to be two? How time flies.
Margot xx

Expat mum said...

Memo to anyone coming to my house, please do not do the washing up, as that makes me feel obliged to at least join you in the kitchen if not take up a cloth and do some drying.
And if you'd seen how these Americans wash up, you'd be of the exact same opinion!

Unknown said...

I've just helped with the washing up for a charity helpers teaparty,but we did get to take home the leftover quiche and strawberry gateau.
It's fun if there are a few of you doing it!

mountainear said...

There was plenty of washing up to be done in our village hall on Saturady night too. But I did draw the line at cleaning the urinals. Start as you mean to go on...

lisa said...

When I was young,I loved listening to my Mom, Aunts,Grandmothers, the women cleaning up in the kitchen after some occasion, there was so much fun talk and laughter, as an adult I have grown close to many friends as we wash up after a gathering, and nothing beats the memories of dancing with my daughter when she was two!!(now she is 22!)

Anonymous said...

why is it the women washing up, you are reinforcing gender stereotypes. What examples are you setting to the boys and girls coming up.
Guests dont wash up in my house,my husband does.I cook he sorts. If he cooks I sort.
But then he is not british, scandanavians have a much better gender balance, no pink jobs and blue jobs there.

HT-B said...

Well Valleys Mam, my husband always clears too and he is Scottish, not Scandanvian. So there is hope!

Potty Mummy said...

What's wrong with paper plates and plastic cutlery? Very retro-chic now too, I hear... (Well, actually not, but if you say it often enough people might start to believe it).