Dinner party

I had some friends over for dinner yesterday evening.  They were originally supposed to come on Thursday and I had a rake of stuff planned to do on Wednesday evening to be well prepared for them but it got changed on Tuesday so I just went with the flow a bit.  Trying to make my own tortillas went out the window for a start.  I did get all my books back onto the newly moved bookshelves but I didn't have time to put up the curtain rails and hang the curtains which are planned to hang all the way across the back wall of the living room, partly to cover up all the mismatched furniture, partly to cover up whatever mess might happen on any of the shelves, partly to improve the feng shui and partly to give me another potential spot to hide the hoover and ironing board.  I also didn't get the ironing done so all of that just got dumped into my bedroom along with all of the jars that had been stacked in boxes and bags in the kitchen and the door closed.

I got up early yesterday, got the bathroom cleaned and made a quick visit to the market to buy fresh lettuce, tomatoes, a couple of peppers and strawberries and raspberries.  Stopped at the organic supermarket on the way home to get some sour cream and olives and headed for work only a little late.  As I hadn't gotten to wash the floors I wanted to leave work on-time so showing up quarter of an hour late wasn't the greatest start to the day.  In the end, due to one particular manager's downright annoyingness and incompetence (he's on holiday, sent something out with my initials on it while I was on holiday which needed to be updated urgently and he obviously never saved it on the network - so at ten to six I had to very quickly re-type a two-page memo.  Lovely) I didn't get out of work until ten past six.  Had to stop at two different supermarkets on the way home in an attempt to buy tortillas and also picked up a couple of avocados as it had occurred to me that if you're doing fajitas you really should have guacomole.

Got home at twenty to seven, rushed to get the floors done and finished just before the first person rang the bell just before seven.  She was coming earlier in order to start crushing ice as she had offered to make frozen margharitas.  So everything was all a bit hectic from then until about half-eight.  We worked away together for half-an-hour and then the others arrived so I ended up being a very bad hostess for 40 minutes or so, doing my best to get them all into the sitting room and out of the kitchen (which just isn't big enough for five people to be hanging around in if one of them needs to be actually preparing stuff).  Actually, I did join them for 10 minutes or so for a cocktail and they seemed happy enough anyway.  Once I had finished laying the table and setting everything out, I cooked the meat, sauteed the onions and peppers (I even got special thanks for doing peppers even though they all know I can't/won't eat them :-) ) and we were good to go.  Didn't bother making guacomole in the end and we just chopped up the avocados to have as they were.

It was great to just sit down and enjoy the meal after the rushing around and everyone seem to eat plenty (I bought 2 packets of 8 small tortillas and 1 packet of 4 large ones - there are 4 small ones left).  I know I had three small ones so that leaves the other four people eating lots I think.  They were all impressed with my homemade salsa as well and everyone took a small jar home with them.  We had strawberries and raspberries with some vanilla ice-cream for dessert, the wine and the conversation flowed and they stayed until midnight.  If no-one had had to work today it could have been a much later evening. 

I had to be up early this morning to go for a smear test before work and that was difficult.  All day I couldn't wait to finish work so that I could come home to bed and of course as these things happens by six I was on a roll and I ended up staying another hour and got loads done.  All the way home I told myself the dishes could sit there until tomorrow morning and that I was going to bed immediately but then when I got home (walked - that makes the difference) I decided to just wash the plates.  But when I'd finished them the water was still good for a few more things so I just did the frying pan and a serving bowl.  Then I put on some other leftovers to heat up and some pasta to go with them and since I had to wait for that to cook anyway I decided to do just a bit more.  Then I realised that since the table was clear I could put a teatowel on it, wash all the glasses and leave them there to dry so I did that.  And at that stage there was only one more basin-full of stuff to do so I just did it.  Yay me!  Feels very good to have done that, I've eaten a proper dinner and now I am off to bed.