THE SPICE GIRLS

I had 18 people for supper last night and a few hours before everybody was due to arrive I discovered my boiler had completely stopped working and I had no heating and no hot water. The problem was easily solved by plying my guests with so much wine that they didn’t notice and then feeding them a very hot Thai curry to keep them warm.

It was a lovely evening. I haven’t done anything like that for years – it was a very casual, “come and have a casual curry and a catch up” because it’s January and it’s miserable and my kitchen feels quite sociable. All my really, really good old friends came. The ones who have been incredibly supportive throughout my break-up. They are my solid, true friends and I love them. And I feel as if I’m back now. I’m going to stop looking for reckless “pub” friends. They all have their place, but are entirely unreliable and managed to make me (almost) completely lose the plot.

One of my friends couldn’t come because she was at the Spice Girls concert. A really good friend of mine is currently working as their osteopath and has been strapping up their legs before and after each show. Shame he wasn’t at my house last night, so that having loosened his tongue with alcohol we could have got him to break the official secrets act he had to sign and get him to give us the goss.

One of the conversations last night was about smelly teenage boys. One of my friends was puzzled because she had found a large number of crunchy socks underneath her son’s bed. Oh how we laughed as she had it explained to her just how revolting teenage boys can be…