Too many people...

Let me tell you about the roast dinner which scuppered yesterday's blog writing activity.

You'll remember that the husband has left me for three blokes, and together they are rampaging over the Pyrenees?  Well I thought it would be a nice idea to invite daughters number one and two over for a late Sunday lunch.  I had a small piece of beef in the freezer which had been in there that long, it could well have been mammoth, so I pulled that out on Saturday morning and left it to defrost.  I'd been shopping on the Friday, and was adding a small cauliflower cheese, swede, broccoli and roasties so all in all, I was sorted.

At Saturday breakfast, I invited my dad and his partner over.  This now made five which meant that the small beef joint probably wouldn't be enough. Into the freezer I went again, pulling out a much needed chicken.  While in there, I found a bag of home grown runner beans, so I added these to the menu.  

And then it was Sunday.  The first inkling I had that there could be trouble was a message received from son number one saying that he was 'on his way over'.  Now one more would have been fine, but he followed this on to say that he would be bringing his girlfriend over.  This meant that we were now seven, so I very quickly peeled a few more potatoes to cover the additional mouths.  Looking at the small amounts of vegetables, I started to panic as to how thin I could spread them.  I then remembered the last few runner beans which I had picked last week.  I managed to salvage six which weren't weren't suffering from brewer's droop, and these were sliced and added to the saucepan of frozen ones.

And then came the phone call...

It was Miss R.  'I'm on my way over.  Anything you need?'

It was on the tip of my tongue to say something flippant, like 'a side of venison please', but settled on 'alcohol and a bag of frozen peas', thinking that I could ply all of my guests with wine, therefore taking their mind off the fact that there wasn't much on their plates.

And guess what?

It bloody worked.

Just as we were finishing the late lunch, I suddenly remembered the Yorkshire puddings languishing in my freezer.  Luckily, by then, everyone was full of cheesecake and wine, so the thought of what might have been was immaterial.  

Miss R had also brought over chocolates and flowers, so was absolutely forgiven for helping to turn my intimate dinner for three into a 'get the spare chairs from the garage' affair.  I finally managed to get rid of everyone except for the two girls at around 7.00, and these two gorgeous girls did all the clearing up for their befuddled, Prosecco-soaked mother.

Mind you, if I had remembered the Yorkshire puds, perhaps we could have done without the peas after all...