A Corvid Cocktail Party for Crichton and Cynthia
Day 31…The house mates are in the doldrums.
It’s official. We have now been cooped up for a month of Sundays, in as much as every morning we get up late, read the papers, play Scrabble, and Crichton bleats for a roast for dinner with gravy. I for one am finding the Sabbath atmosphere is beginning to lose its novelty, but this might have something to do with the company I am forced to keep.
Now don’t get me wrong. Apart from Arraminta's sulky mood now that Love Island has been cancelled, I am fond of my family. Cook is an absolute brick, when it comes to meals while Stubbins is worth his weight in gold if only for keeping Crichton on the straight and narrow. No, It’s the tedium of the same faces and the same conversations day after day.
Deliveries from Amazon keep coming thick and fast and I was delighted to receive a robot vacuum cleaner sent by Jerome. He said he couldn’t bear to think of his mother hoovering her own carpets with the ancient Henry and that he thought Brexit would enjoy himself with it too.
He couldn’t have been more right. Megan, that’s what we have called it, trundles about ripping the fringe off the Persian rugs and getting stuck under chairs while The Sausage follows behind snapping and snarling but never quite brave enough for a full attack. So far so good. The house is looking better already. So much so that I suggested we should do some entertaining before it gets messy again.
‘Not while we’re in splendid, madam,’ said Cook, ‘it wouldn’t be allowed.’
I wasn’t sure what she meant.
‘Lord Salisbury got it right, madam. Life was never the same after the Boer war. I blame the Americans.’
I explained that social isolation wasn’t quite the same thing and that I was actually proposing a virtual cocktail party, on line.Crichton said he would prefer a real drink to a picture of one, and I realised he hadn’t quite got the idea either.
‘I meant we could Zoom Biff and Kitty for her birthday, and have a few G and T’s, and perhaps Cook could make some nibbles.’
He grunted and Cook sighed. Or was it the other way around? Either way, it was as good as I could expect to get after such a huge lunch, so I took it as a yes and went off to look for the cocktail shaker. I was quite excited.
My hair has become such a mess without Lauren's weekly expertise in the salon that even my phone doesn't know me anymore. It refuses to open with facial recognition and I have to use the code, so I decided to wear the stretch turban that Kitty gave me last year. It's a hideous green but this would prove to her that I like it. She's funny about these things and can be quite acerbic if you don't show the requisite amount of gratitude. Bunty finally returned it after her little bit of trouble with the toffee apples on bonfire night and although it's still a bit sticky, it certainly does the job and covers everything if I pull it down far enough at the front. It was a real treat to put on some make up and a decent pair of earrings, after so long and with a silk shirt waister, I was ready for the event'
Arraminta came down in the tiniest of skirts with an even tinier blouse but I didn't t have the heart to tell her to cover up incase Uncle Biff got too interested. At least she'd made an effort which was more than could be said for her father.
Crichton had spent the afternoon basking in the sun wearing his favourite multicoloured Bermuda shorts that he bought on an 18-30 holiday in Crete back in the 70's. The elastic gave out years ago but he won't part with them and holds them up with a piece of baler twine around the middle. An open necked Tattersall check shirt completed the ensemble.
'No need to bother,' he insisted. 'Nobody can see below the waist on the screen .Besides which I bet you a pound to a penny that Biff will be by their pool in his budgie smugglers.
Arraminta came down in the tiniest of skirts with an even tinier blouse but I didn't t have the heart to tell her to cover up incase Uncle Biff got too interested. At least she'd made an effort which was more than could be said for her father.
Crichton had spent the afternoon basking in the sun wearing his favourite multicoloured Bermuda shorts that he bought on an 18-30 holiday in Crete back in the 70's. The elastic gave out years ago but he won't part with them and holds them up with a piece of baler twine around the middle. An open necked Tattersall check shirt completed the ensemble.
'No need to bother,' he insisted. 'Nobody can see below the waist on the screen .Besides which I bet you a pound to a penny that Biff will be by their pool in his budgie smugglers.
On the dot of six o’clock Cook laid a cloth on the coffee table and presented her corvid canapés. Very retro and at the same time very 2020. A grapefruit covered in foil and stabbed with cocktail sticks, bearing small pieces of salami and cheese.
‘It’s my virus variation, madam,’ she said with pride and I have to say it did look very like the one they show on the ten o’clock news.Arraminta set up the meeting on her lap top, Crichton poured the drinks and we were away.
Biff set things off with one of his unusual greetings.
'Nadolig Llawen.Mae fy hofrenfad yn llawn o llysywod.
I do wish he'd stick to English. I'm sure he hasn't got any more clue about he's saying than I have. Crichton was right about the swimming trunks and Biff hadn't bother with a shirt at all. I forgotten that he has a very hairy back and we were given a full view of it as he waved his glass. I heard Arraminta gag on her Red Bull and Vodka.
But here was Kitty, resplendent in a Kaftan.
'Happy Birthday, darling,has our gift arrived?'
'Gift? Gift?'
'Your birthday present silly.Has it come?'
I had spent a small fortune on a pair of leopard skin mules with diamante bows. Jerome picked them out on one of our shopping sprees BV (before Virus)
'Oh Hahahah! You mean the shoes.'
'Yes. The shoes. You don't like them do you? I knew it.'
'Don't be silly.We all love-love-loved the shoes. Especially Rollo. I've worn nothing else since they arrived.' Kitty lay back on the couch and lifted her legs to show off the mules. One looked decidedly chewed. Rollo is a poodle almost as savage as Brexit when it comes to foot wear.
'By the way, What the hell have you got on your head, Cynthia?
'It's a turban...You gave it to me for my birthday.'
'Did I? What a hoot. Well, take it off. You look like one of the three wise men.'
I don't know why I bother.
Talked turned to other things, not least new vacuum cleaner and Crichton went off to fetch if from the cleaning cupboard. He pressed the start button and Megan set off on a circuit of the room, while Biff and Kitty applauded and we nibbled our cheese and salami while looking hungrily at their smoked salmon blinis. We had just topped up our cocktails for the third, or was it the fourth time, when Megan came trundling across the floor with her little brushes whirring, and gobbled up the edge of the table cloth before setting off back across the room dragging it behind her. Crichton made a lunge for the drinks and his baler twine gave out. Down went the glasses, down went the covid canapés and worse still, down went the Bermuda shorts giving my husband's buttocks their freedom. It was not a pretty sight. Brexit made a dash for the canapés as they tumbled to the floor and devoured the lot, sticks and all, and while I tried to cover Crichton's behind with the wine soaked table cloth, Arraminta calmly filmed the whole thing on her iPhone and posted it on Facebook.
Thank goodness these events only last for 45 minutes or who knows what else could have happened.
Crichton Comments
Must get Stubbins to find some more baler twine. There's years of wear left in the trusty trunks yet.4,734 likes on face book!
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