Entertaining friends

OMG! I had to tidy everything away in my dining room for dinner with friends tonight! Those people who keep inviting us round invited us again already!!!! So I Had to have them round here. I made sure everyone had a little job to do, DD did the strawberries, DS laid the table, DH did my ironing (first time in nearly 30 years of marraige!!!!! - I had to show him how the iron works!) I cooked lamb Tagine, thanks to Lesley on Tanda Stamps forum for the recipe! It was really lovely, and I hated DH giving the kids huge plate fulls, because I knew they wouldn't eat it!!! Our friends kids are very fussy, so I usually have to do sausages or chicken legs or something seperate for them. They are 18 and 16 now!!!! Well, their DD only had 2 chicken legs for her dinner. I felt a bit rotten, but what can you do, I was trying not to spend all day preparing, cos I don't really like doing this entertaining lark. The funny thing is that these people are the only people we ever have round for a meal, everyone else just comes for a cup of coffee, or we go out with them.

The conversation was a bit dire last night. DD and thier DD were being silly teenagey, and my friend kept saying, ooooh what are you like? and joining in with their silliness. Call me a prude or old fashioned but I prefer grown up talk! Trouble was Mr Friend is totally obsessed with global warming etc atm, and that's all he can talk about. He is very clever and is able to talk very clearly and I used to like listening to him, BUT it is BORING NOW!!!!!! And he is always full of doom and gloom about the future! Todays lecture was that we won't have clocks anymore cos noone will make the little batteries that go in them!!!

So here are a couple of photos of said dining room, all corners have huge piles of stash in them now! I am off to IKEA in September to buy some IVAR shelving that fits 12 x 12. Trouble is we have this lovely pine furniture, but 12 x 12 is just too big for it. I have a really nice pine dresser that I haven't got a photo of that is stacked full of stash too!
















And here is the table laid before they came. It did look nice, I love the colours I have in the dining room, and once it got a bit dark (far too early considering it is still August!) we put the lamps on and it was great!