First dinner guests!

We can meet people socially in their gardens! Or our gardens. So as soon as that was legal I was keen to put that into practice. I invited my colleague up on the hill over! He and his wife had been among the first to inaugurate my presentable house. They live well within the 5 mile limit. And they hadn't seen my garden yet. Nor have I seen theirs! I only go there in winter. But they were a bit starved of human contact too so they were keen to oblige!

The weather had been scorching for quite a while, but it was going to turn. Oh dear. But when the weekend approached it looked like at least it would be dry. And that's the important bit! On the actual day Martin texted; the Sunday actually looked better, weather-wise. Did I want to swap? But I didn't; that day I would be on quite a day out and I didn't want to have to stress about being back on time. A pity though, that we missed the sunshine!

Given the forecast I had decided to cook warming food. I had chosen my signature sauerkraut dish with halloumi, and a side salad made of grilled fruit with cherry tomatoes, onion and balsamic vinegar. Yes that sounds daft but I think it worked!

I made sure to be near a window at the time of them being due. I couldn't let them into my house so I had to be ready to jump out and lead them into the garden! I had set up there, with the garden table for them and a side table for me. We had to keep 2m distance and my table is only just over 1m diameter!

I soon went to get the dinner. As we are not allowed into other people's houses, they would break the law if they would go to the loo in my place. And I'm not sure if they would be comfortable crouching behind a shrub. I most certainly wasn't comfortable suggesting it. Most people are a bit too civilised for that! And Martin popped the wine.

It was good to catch up! We discussed typical lockdown topics, such as what interesting things we had seen in other people's houses on video calls, how we had managed to get our dose of human contact, how we saw returning to the office, what sort of exercise or food growing or suchlike we had been doing. And some scary collarbone stories, due to Martin's adventures on his mountain bike!

The food went down well and they had brought a lovely dessert. They had even brought four, so I had one for the next day too! But then it was time to go home; it was getting a bit chilly and sooner or later the loo issue would raise its head. But my garden had been inaugurated as a late lockdown social venue again and I had thoroughly enjoyed it!