The host

It's an unlikely change but in my old age I have become something of a host.  In the past I have always relied on the lady in my life to organize that sort of thing.  I even cook simple meals for people on occasions these days.

One of Anne's oldest friends is a lady I will call Mrs M. -- who is married to Mr M., funnily enough.  I get on particularly well with Mr M., who is a genuine original. I have lots of fun discussions with him.  So I insisted that Anne invite them both to dinner at my place. I even had the house cleaned for the occasion.

So on Tuesday I cooked up a curry using a very safe procedure -- which consisted of tippng a bottle of Sharwoods curry sauce into a frying pan of mince. As my guests both hailed from the Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, I intended it to be a mild English curry.  So I added sultanas to the mince.  I am a bit slack on reading labels, however, so I failed to notice that the sauce bottle had "Medium" written on it. The end result tasted very good to me but I noticed that my guests drank a lot of water with theirs.  They were very brave.

I served my usual Seaview Brut champagne. I have become rather fond of fizzy drinks these days.  I also tip Bundaberg Lemon Lime and Bitters into my late night Vodka these days.

We talked mostly about our families but also ventured a little into global warming and such topics.

The Saint was honoured once again

Saint Valentine of Rome was a priest and bishop in the Roman Empire who ministered to Christians who were persecuted there. He was martyred on February 14, which has been observed as the Feast of Saint Valentine (Saint Valentine's Day) since 496 AD. So he was a definite good guy.

I did most of the customary things.  I put a vase with a mass of yellow flowers and some pink ones in Anne's room with one added red rose plus one lily.  Lilies have bad connotations but Anne likes them.  So that was my version of Ikebana.  I guess I failed the class but Anne liked it

Anne presented herself with her hair long, blonde and out, wearing a dark blue floral frock which  proved she had both a waist and a bosom and she wore shoes with slight heels on them.  We are both pretty unsteady on our feet so the heels were a definite concession to the occasion. She looked pretty good.

For presents I gave Anne a big box of Maltesers, a packet of Aspro Clear, a packet of Quickeze, a bottle of Apricot jam, a bottle of Cumquat jam, three shopper dockets for petrol discounts and a bright green bedsheet.  Life is different among the oldies.  Anne appreciated the offerings anyway.  We both gave one-another jocular cards.

For dinner I took us to the Indian Brothers near where I live.  It is a bit fancier than most Indian restaurants.  I took along my last bottle of Barossa Pearl to drink.  We had Onion Pakora, Punjabi chicken (which was very good), cheese & Spinach Naan, eggplant sabji, and some other chicken curry which we didn't finish.

After dinner we listened to Ottorino Respighi on YouTube and at bed time Anne put my pressure sock on my Left leg for me.  Isn't that Romantic?