There has been a long-held tradition in my family – well,
amongst the women at least – that Friday night is the night that we should get
together, gather in whichever is the hosting house, eat, drink, plot and scheme
in the way that only women can, and simply celebrate the fact that it is Friday.
The last forty or more years have seen some spectacular
Fridays. There has been much laughter
and much heartbreak. There has been a
staggering scattering of significant secrets and much searching of souls. We girls have, of course, spent many hours
righting the world’s most dreadful wrongs and undoubtedly just as many hours
talking an astounding amount of bollocks.
Not surprisingly, all of our gregarious gabbing has been
accompanied by the gobbling of gallons and gallons of wine.
Well, this Friday was no different.
Eleanor was this week’s host. Paula and I had been willingly lured to
Ellie’s lair by the promise of yummy food and a drop or two of vino, but there
was to be more than idle chitchat and girlie gossip featuring on the agenda. Ellie had not invited us merely because she
loved us and it was a Friday. Oh no, we
had a mission to accomplish!
Interior design was the theme of the evening, as the lounge
had reached that critical point of ‘finishing off’. There were pictures to be hung and new
furniture to be arranged. Not wishing to
show off, but, Paula and I are pretty good at that kind of stuff and you would
be surprised at how many people are simply not.
And, weird as it may sound to anybody below the age of thirty – that placing
of paraphernalia in the right position can make for a pretty good night!
And indeed it did.
So, having won our place on the yet to be invented home
makeover show entitled ‘How to hang pictures and arrange furniture’ we bade
goodbye to our grateful host and left for home.
It was all going so very well …
Now, I am tempted to blame Ellie’s house. It, being in an elevated position sporting a
ridiculous amount of steps leading from the gate to the front door,
interspersed with paths of slate and all things sharp and jagged …
Or, could it have been the shoes that I had chosen to
wear? Given that we were walking and
shoes and I do not get on terribly well, I had decided to wear flat, comfy, ever
so slightly too big shoes that don’t hurt a bit. A mistake, perhaps.
Or, maybe it was the dog, and he just tugged too hard on the
leash?
Yet something, I know not what, made me fall.
Obviously, there is no way it could it have been the wine! No way at all.
If only that had been the end of it. A little bounce on the bum is really nothing
to remark about after all.
But no, my heroic sister Paula, in her noble and selfless
attempt to save me from harm, launched herself in my path and plummeted,
back-first, into one of the many sharp and jagged things that litter the route
from Ellie’s door to gate.
Yes, it’s all the fault of Ellie’s house!
Paula, battered and broken, could barely breathe. Something was very wrong.
‘Do you need an ambulance?’ I asked, being the caring sister
that I am.
‘No, let’s just get home,’ she gasped.
This was now our second mission of the night.
There is very little as powerful at propelling a person
along as a spot of Pinot and we made it, uphill all the way.
At some point along the way I lost one of my ever so
slightly too big shoes. But, despite
being breathless and barefoot, we made it home.
The following morning it was clear that all was not
well. Paula spent the next twelve agonising
hours in A and E with a fractured rib.
An overnight stay was advised as her pain was so severe.
‘Had you had a drink at all?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Er…’
No! It’s Ellie’s
house!
As I walked the dog that morning, we came across an
abandoned shoe. Bodger (my dog) shoved
his nose right in it, as if to say, ‘Hey, Mum!
This smells just like you!’
Averting my gaze I passed by, tugging the dog behind me and yelling,
‘leave that tramp’s shoe alone!’
I realise that two ladies, both the wrong side of middle
aged, staggering up the South Cliff in Scarborough, one barely able to breathe,
the other bearing only one shoe, is not what one could consider attractive,
desirable, or even remotely tolerable.
But … well … it was a Friday!