The weekend is over and one very good aspect of being retired is Monday Mornings - I wish there were more of them in a week. When at work Monday signalled the end of playtime and back to the dark mornings up and down motorways and a week away but now I like them. Everyone else goes off to work and I stay at home. Can't be bad.


This weekend was a good one. On Saturday night we went to Gwen and Chris' for dinner. Now Gwen and Chris are exceptionally good friends of ours and considering where Gwen started life (wrong side of the railway tracks in Beverley) it would probably be fair to say she's done OK for herself and puts on a decent nosh.



They live in two converted cottages with a swimming pool and pony (I just made up the swimming pool and pony, but you get the idea) and have just had a new kitchen fitted. Underfloor central heating, radiator and 15.7kw cooker, when Gwens cooking in her kitchen the lights in South Cave visably dim. But none of this has to do with the story. It's probably time to introduce Gwen and Chris so here they are. Does Chris look like he going thin on top, you may wonder what they are holding and I'll come to that next.


So the whole point of the story is the mishappen plates and cups - obviously seconds probably from the Pound Shop.

Now this surprises me a little as I would not expect Gwen to know these shops existed let alone go in one. Take a closer look.


But to go back a stage, the meal commenced with a goat's cheese starter served on a square plate (obviously got a job lot of the mishapes) which is set out in front of me in a diamond formation so the corner of the square plate is pointing at me. Keeping up?
I immediately turn the plate to be square to me and start eating. Christine glares at me, indicating her own plate. I look around the table and notice everyone else eating from the diamond formation. What's all this about? I have only just got posh enough to go out to dinner and now there is etiquette about plate formations. When did this start and how does everyone else know about it? I eat my starter in diamonds.


The main course arrives, Gwen would probably not call it fish in tomato but there was fish and tomato so .., this was served on the wavy plates. I am getting confused but OK, so the plates wavy. By the time dessert arrives on yet another wavy plate, (that's it above) I have to mention something. As I start to mention Pound Shop and Mishapes Christine jumps in quickly and says Villeroy and Boch. Now Christine knows nothing about football so she can't be talking about two new players for Chelsea so this has to mean something else. These are of course the makers of the posh 'wavy' plates. What else would we expect from Gwen? I remember when we all thought Hornsea Pottery was posh.


All joking aside the meal was as usual superb, Gwen is a great cook and Chris keeps an excellent wine cellar. Considering Gwen and Christine only have a glass of wine each four bottles of good Sancerre and a red between me and Chris plus a couple of beers is an indication of why I wasn't at my best on Sunday or Monday. Apparently we also solved our cooker extraction problem and I got 'Poetry in Motion' from the first two notes and 'Blue Moon' from only one note. It would be nice to remember - maybe.

Whist discussing Dinner Parties, it's Rosemary next with some really posh people.