Together, we make a great team
ONE of the things I’ve missed most in Lush Places during all these lockdowns is not getting together at home for a meal with friends.
Whilst I’m a solitary sort of person in many respects, I do like to hear banter and funny stories. I’ve missed that interaction with my village friends.
Mr Grigg picks up his news by volunteering in the community shop, but, as you know, I spend my days writing in the Shed of Dreams, as the smoke from the wood-burner curls around the garden and envelops the pigeons and blackbirds in their attempt to prise open the peanut feeder on the yew tree.
Mr Grigg and I love entertaining. He’s a great cook and I’m very fond of coming up with ideas to bring people together.
Together, we make a great team.
In many ways, our suppers are like a major scene in an epic story, with our friends as key characters. Once absorbed in the evening, we never quite know how it will pan out.
Oh, how I miss dear old Champagne Charlie, who always sat next to me, often with Mr Loggins on the other side, blathering on about the many acquaintances and tall stories we had in common.
Charlie used to say he loved my roasts, though I think he was too polite and well-bred to say otherwise.
It had been a while since the original gang was together.
It’s never been the same since Charlie’s passing, but we still had a lot of fun before lockdown.
During this pandemic, I think all of us around the world have worked out what it is that’s really important to us: health, family, friendship and home.
So, in the build-up to Chinese New Year in February, I discovered on reading “The People’s Friend” that it was my year.
I am an Ox: honest, hardworking, kind and capable of keeping my cool, but apparently fixated on my goals.
This seems pretty accurate to me, although I don’t quite understand how all people born in the same year can have the same traits.
Anyway, I digress. Usually, when it’s Chinese New Year, Mrs Bancroft will host a superb meal for ten or more.
She’s the hub because she used to live in Hong Kong years ago with her late husband and children.
So, to break down the wall of self-isolation, I came up with an idea.
Why not encourage the old gang to pick up a takeaway or cook a Chinese meal from scratch at the same time, then have a half-hour chat on Zoom?
I discovered that Mrs Bancroft was one step ahead and already planning to entertain her bubble of Mr Putter and the Fragrant
Mrs Putter that evening.
It didn’t take much persuasion to encourage the others – the Angel Of The North, Mr Brogue Boots, Pelly and Mr Sheepwash, along with Darling and Mr Loggins – to join in.
Nobby Odd-job declined, not being a fan of Chinese food, although I did wonder if it was more to with a Zoom phobia.
Menus were dreamed up all over the village, there was a rush on beansprouts and pak choi in the community shop’s “click and collect” orders, and Mr Grigg and I got down to baking our own fortune cookies.
His job was to do the cooking, while mine was to come up with the fortune appropriate for each participant.
And the result? A socially distant but fun event with good friends, with plenty of laughter and great food.
I’m now thinking a plate-smashing evening (Greece) could go down well.
I can hear the echo of broken crockery all over the village . . . ■
In her weekly column, Maddie Grigg shares tales from her life in rural Dorset . . .