It all went very well...thank God.
Hubby and I had a few words in the planning phases...owing to different umm visions..of the strategy...;) His was nibbles and drinkies....mine was a 3 course meal...so we compromised and did the 3 course meal.
It took 2 days hard labour...we are blissfully olivious to how untidy and disorganised our house is until we move, throw a party or have visitors. So now it looks great on the surface...but please don't open any presses.
Our local Victor Meldrew showed up 20 minutes early laden down with 2 bottles of champagne, a big box of chocolates and a big bag of sweets for the kids.
Very generous and neighbourly considering his first words to us were grumbling about les anglais (us) and their dogs. Once he realised we weren't anglais he has looked more kindly on us and our dog. Anyway he didn't want anything to eat or drink, explained about his diabetes and just stood there in the kitchen chatting, with me straaaaining to understand. Sort of a taste of our worst case scenario.
All the other neighbours arrived around 5 ish, all except our immediate neighbours...weird...they never salute or speak to us anyway...who knows what's going on there. So we had 11 adults and 10 kids in total.
I bought bubbles, plasticine and ultra bouncy balls for the kids to play with and they were a great hit...kept then all amused for the duration....even the teenagers, whom I apologised profusely to, about the juvenile nature of the toys.
The neighbours all brought something, wine, a quiche and a tarte tatin. Delicious.
They gobbled down the hungarian goulash, and wondered if it was an irish dish! We offered rice or mash...they all wanted rice..so they got biafran portions...the spuds were lovely if I do say so myself.
My winter berry cheesecake was a big hit. Cheesecake is unusual in France apparently. I didn't tell them I sieved the raspberry coulis using a foot cut off a new (I swear) pair of tights.
We got the impression that they didn't know each other well either...so we are acting like a social lubricant. They were all lovely and seemed genuinely delighted to have been invited. We have the promise of two reciprocal invites. My french held up fine except, with Victor Meldrew who has a very strong accent. Hubby was happy with his level of comprehension and ability to communicate. Our Scottish, Swedish and one of our english guests also speak good french...so we were away in a hack.
The kids atarted getting grumbly around 8ish so everyone started to disperse and we were all cleaned up by 10pm. A great success considering the youngest guest were 5 and 7 weeks old and the oldest in their 70s.
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