Garden Party

I was pretty surprised to get a Facebook invitation on Thursday to a garden party being held the next day from a friend who is one of those "casual acquaintence" Facebook friends. You know the ones, where you met at a cocktail party, "friend" each other the next day saying how lovely it was to chat with them, and then entirely forget about the fact that they're even on your friend list.

So the invite pretty much came out of nowhere, but was intriguing enough for me to consider. Why not go to a random garden party where I didn't know that many people to stand around drinking wine and cocktails for a while? Knowing the girl and the party where I met her, it was likely going to be a bunch of British upper-class types and perhaps some minor nobility, with people talking like Bertie Wooster and actually demonstrating what might be called a "braying laugh", that affected chortle that somehow seems to distinguish the British upper classes.

Except the only problem was that I already had plans for Friday. I was supposed to be getting on a train right after work to head to Salisbury, where I was going to spend the weekend running around with my running club friends, seeing Stonehenge and the Salisbury Cathedral. So too bad, even though the garden party looked fun, I couldn't go.

Then I started talking to my cousin's ex-girlfriend (long story, but she's awesome and my cousin is a loser), and she asked me, "Couldn't you take a train to Salisbury in the morning?"

I realised she was right, that I'd have to getup at 5 AM, but it would be possible for me to go to the garden party that night and join my friends in Salisbury that morning. Yet did I want to subject myself to that much stress, staying out late at a party, and then getting up on the train at that hour of the morning? I dithered about what to do all of the way home, constantly debating: Garden Party or Salisbury? New friends or old friends? What to do, what to do...the stress merry-go-round just seemed to go on and on.

Finally, at 7 PM, when I absolutely had to decide what to do, I made the call in favour of the Garden Party. I texted a friend in Salisbury to say I would arrive in the morning, and almost instantly I was amazed by the sense of relief I felt. Once the decision was made, everything fell into place.

(Which also gave me a sense of how to respond to the text of the Tube guy I received as I left the office, where he said, "Had a great time... Would be nice to see you again some time... Regards, Marco". Just realised I had to text him back and give him a second chance, but let him know I was more interested in being friends in person. Even deciding on that lowered my stress-level about it considerably. Although I suppose that it's making me stressed should tell me something).

So I quickly changed, throwing my super-high heels into a bag so I could run to the Tube in my flip-flops. Stopped at the grocery store on my way to the station, grabbed a bottle of chilled white wine, and made it up to the party just half-an-hour after it was due to start.

As I arrived at the tube station and pulled out my pre-printed Google map, trying to follow the street signs as I figured out where to go, I began to doubt myself as I headed down the quiet streets of impressive residential houses, wondering, "What on earth are you doing? You barely know the girl who invited you, and you're not going to know anybody there. How on earth can you just show up like this? You're going to spend the evening standing by yourself in the corner."

Yet, just as my confidence was wavering and I was about to go scurrying home without attending, on the street outside the party I ran into a guy I remembered meeting at the last one of these British upper-class parties I had attended. I exclaimed a greeting, he thankfully remembered my name, and we knocked on the door together, which was answered by another young man I knew from another one of these same parties. I almost felt like the universe was reassuring me, "Don't worry, you're not going to spend the evening standing by yourself in the corner, you'll be fine here!"

Having walked in the door with two people I knew, they quickly introduced me to a few more people, and before long I was easily ensconced in conversation. A few times throughout the evening, I found myself desperately needing to employ diversionary tactics to escape the conversation I was in (as happened shortly after this photo was snapped; I'm the girl at the top in the black dress trying to get away from the hideously dull people), but for the most part everyone I met was lovely. Although it's a good talent to develop, how to extricate oneself from conversations!

The other talent I really needed was how to extricate myself from the grass. Note To Self: Spike-heeled stilletos are NOT a good footwear choice when you are going to be standing on grass.

It was somewhat comical, as I would be standing there talking to people, and then just slowly start to sink as my heels sank into the grass. And I would carry on talking, pretending like I wasn't growing visibly shorter right in front of their eyes, trying to surrepticiously shift my weight and get myself out of the little holes I kept digging myself into.

I ended up talking quite a bit to a 20-year old young man (although he seemed much older) who had just made his first visit to America, and to New York. He'd loved it, but was surprised at the strictness of our under-21 drinking laws. Yet at the same time, he was fascinated by how enamoured Americans (particularly the girls) were with his British accent. It led to one of the most hysterical lines of the evening, when a man standing nearby commented, "Yeah, but have you ever seen the reaction you get when you try to buy two 18-year old girls in a bar some gin-and-tonics? The Americans REALLY seem to have a problem with that!"

Still, I guess things work a bit differently here and for these people... I was rather shocked when I saw a girl I knew, who is quite widely known to be about 5 months pregnant, smoking a cigarette and quaffing some champagne. Even more strangely, her husband was standing right nearby, but didn't seem to take issue with this. I suppose I could understand the occasional glass of wine, but SMOKING? When pregnant?

Finally just ended up talking to a chap who is a member of my club, about activities at the club, people we knew in common (turns out he's good friends with one of my old hook-ups, so while I let it be known that I knew the guy, I didn't say WHY), and class and society in England in general. Really genial, nice guy. I remember when I first met him I thought that he'd done quite well in his recent marriage, as he's tipping the scales towards 250 lbs or so, while his wife is considerably more physically attractive, but after chatting to him I wonder if it wasn't his wife who got the better deal there.

The 20-year old then came up to press the chap I was talking to for a favour, needing to book a table at the Carlton for dinner on Thursday, where he is not yet a full member. Then, I think mostly because I was standing there, invited that I should come along too. The chap agreed to make the booking and suggested I should come as well, although I wonder if this was simply one of those plans made under the influence of quite a bit of wine and won't actually be followed through on.

Finally, with the hour growing late, I made my good-byes, and caught one of the last trains home, slipping into bed just before 2 AM. Yes, I would have to be up again in three hours, but what a fun night out it was!