The diaries are consistent on this – Saturday evening dinner at John & Mandy’s place (Dangan Road, Wanstead).
I think we went for a walk around the area before dinner on that occasion, as it was our first visit to that house and the days are long at that time of year. I remmeber doing that walk in the light.
We had a very good meal, although in truth I cannot describe exactly what we ate. I’m guessing that John cooked something with a southern asian theme, but not too hot and spicy because he knew that Janie doesn’t go for very spicy food.
I think it is fair to say that we probably drank some good wine too and I know that we did all enjoy the evening, as was our wont on those occasions when we four got together for meaks back then…and still, 26+ years later.
Janie’s diary says that Phillie [& Charlie] arrived on the Friday (2 July) and that Janie and I stayed at my palce that night. I’m guessing that the previous visit at Easter all squeezing into Sandall Clsoe had made that idea fall from favour. There was no need, given my flat’s proximity.
Janie’s diary says 6:45 at Restaurant “arrange three taxis”, so I am guessing that Pauline joined us as well.
But no clues as to the location.
It might have been North China again – I think we did all go there more than once and that location would have seemed ideal for triangulating those three addresses.
According to Janie’s diary, she came to the Canal Cafe with me on the Thursday evening (24th) to see NewsRevue.
We’d both booked the Friday out, so my guess is that the idea was to sort out the food for Saturday’s dinner party together on the Friday.
Janie’s order is written on the Friday page and is Lebanese food, so this party will have been a smaller scale version of the New Years do a few months earlier:
We’ll have gone to Mrs Saad’s place in Notting Hill/North Kernsington together to place the order – and what an order for six people. My guess is that this was one of those occasions when Janie and I ended up eating Lebanese left-overs for a week afterwards…
…worse things can happen.
Look at the order/notes:
The veal and pork mixed mince is my prescription for cha chiang. Did we serve the odd Chinese dish as well? Or perhaps the deal was that I would cook a noce meal on the Friday ahead of the party-style feast on Saturday.
It was Janie’s birthday after all – our first of those together.
Janie’s diary also mentions Jill the aromatherapist visiting us at the house on the afternoon of her birthday/birthday bash.
In those days, I was seeing John Chaney at Lampton Place for massage during the week.
The visit from Jill (Wootton) was probably the first time Janie and I had a massage-type therapy treatment together.
As for the dinner party; it is clear that we got Mrs Saad to deliver the food and I am pretty sure it is safe to say that the evening was a great success.
Looks like a lot of food – that can’t have been just for six of us. I’ll guess that the guest numbers went up without additional names being written down.
My diary says this dinner at mine was on 19th, Janie’s says 18th.
For sure I took the day off work Friday 18th, but that might have been as much to do with the NewsRevue Smoker the evening before than anything to do with the dinner party.
Janie has written a recipe for some healthy fish salad where Saturday 19th should be in her diary, but I am sure that has nothing to do with my dinner party.
Perhaps she served such healthy, salady stuff later in the weekend to neutralise the ill effects of my lavish meal on the Friday…or was it the Saturday…night.
My diary is suitably vague as to the guests:
Dan+
Dan will be Daniel Scordel. I’m not sure whetehr Daniel and Maz were still an item then – perhaps not given the term “Dan+”.
No idea who else might have been there. Andrea possibly. No more than five or maximum six at my place for a meal.
We went for dinner at Victor & Kim’s place. Kim & Micky were also there. DJ might have been there too that night but I have a feeling it was just the six of us.
Victor’s second wife was named Kim, which caused some confusion with his daughter Kim when, on occasions, someone mentioned “Kim” without a fair bit of context.
Janie’s solution was to add the suffix “the chickidoo” when referring to Victor’s Kim, while omiting said suffix when referring to her old school pal Kim. Clever stuff.
Anyway, I seem to recall a very enjoyable evening on that occasion. Good food, good wine, good chat.
What else might one wish for from such an evening?
Janie had a former colleague and friend named Michelle. Janie called her “Pussycat Michelle”.
We visited Michelle and her partner Joe for lunch in Amersham for lunch on this Sunday.
I recall little about the lunch, other than some good food (Michelle’s French background was telling) and a little bit of whacky backy from Joe after lunch.
They were good company, those two, but it always seemed difficult to fix up times to see them, so there were few (if any) repeats. Certainly we only made the one visit there.
My diary says that I played bridge with my gang at Tessa’s place on the Thursday evening. That would have been Tessa, Andrea and Maz.
Janie’s diary says that Phillie & family were arriving that day and that they were having dinner “at mum’s” that Thursday evening from 6.00 and that I would be coming over 12.30.
I think I had a key by then. Or this might have been the occasion that resulted in me having a key.
Anyway, Janie’s diary says that we all went for a meal at North China on the Friday evening. This is the gathering of Pauline, Phillie, Tony, Charlie, Janie and me, all around a Chinese restaurant table, that i recall so well from our early time together. I think we only ever did that as a group of six the once.
The diaries are very light on what we did. Possibly we didn’t do much.
To some extent Phillie, Tony & Charlie were probably using Sandall Close as a base to do other stuff.
Where the heck did everyone sleep at Sandall Close?
Anyway, we were all still talking to each other come the Tuesday, as the diary says we six (including Pauline) had a dinner party at Sandall Close on the Tuesday evening.
Janie and I both worked that day too.
I think the family stayed on with Janie until the Wednesday afternoon.
It was a quirky, rather corny film with some excellent actors in it.
I am pretty sure we ate and stayed at mine, not least because Janie treated one of her Saudi princess clients in town on Saturday moirning before we went off to Bristol. I don’t suppose they discussed Leon The Pig Farmer.
My diary is not at all forthcoming about the details of this weekend. All I wrote for the Friday evening and then Saturday were a couple of very short words:
PIG.
Hils.
Then some arrows and stuff across the Sunday, implying that we stayed in Bristol, Janie also had a symbolic line through Sunday.
With no other information about where we stayed, I’m guessing this is the one and only time that we stayed at Janie’s sister Hil and Chris Boswell’s house, in the conservatory, on their Z bed. (Sounds like a Cluedo accusation).
Memory suggests that we ate a very good meal with some good wine. Were “entertained” by the boys squabbling with each other and then tried our best to sleep on the Z bed.
I’m pretty sure this was the evening that I cooked a chinese meal at my flat for Kim, Micky & Janie, only to discover that Kim’s at that time seemingly liberal vegetarian attitudes…
…she was veggie but didn’t at that time go on about it to others…
…had limits.
One of those limits was the sight of a whole animal; in this case a fish.
One of my specialities in those days was to steam a whole fish with ginger, spring onion, using a fair slurp of saki in the steaming water and a dash of soy sauce and coriander to garnish.
Yum.
So after serving starters; probably my signature won ton soup for most of us and something well-chosen and veggie for Kim…
…I’d have probably put quite a lot of thought into the veggie options for Kim that evening…
…I then served the mains including my piece de resistance, the fish.
All hell broke loose. Kim felt sick. Kim couldn’t believe that we could eat that. Kim was upset.
Janie, who knew Kim really well was surprised at that reaction…
…but then realised that she had never served anything that looked quite so “original form animal” as a whole fish. Somehow big prawns didn’t seem to have the same effect.
Anyway, i/we never did that again when Kim was coming round.
