Garden with colleagues

I am on a mission to make up for lost time! Now I have a house with a living room I want to invite people. I like having people over! Not too often; I stay a bit stuck in my solitary mindset, but it's nice to have a drink and a chat with nice people. And my house now does a good job as a host! So this time I had two of my colleagues over. I figured they'd combine well. And they agreed! One is Suzie who I work with quite a lot, which is great, and the other being Sarah who is a biologist so with whom I don't share any modules, but who is also in the teaching and learning team. She's nuts! The sort of person to think it's not daft at all to run a full marathon before a full working day. And she's vegan so that provided a slight challenge. I tend to have dairy in my food. If I don't it's often something like fried rice, but the spice mix I use has fish sauce in it, so that's off too. I went for something simple with chick peas and spinach! A bit of a cliche, but as I would be invigilating an exam in Bangor until 4.30 I figured I couldn't really do something very elaborate.

My students were done in good time so I could prepare the garden furniture and the nibblies and the food at my leisure. And quite punctually the ladies arrived! And they liked the house. Although Suzie is so British she would probably have said so anyway. But I think she meant it! I showed them the house and then we went into the garden for a drink and afore-mentioned nibblies. They liked it! 'My' dipper duly appeared to enliven the scene.

I brought the main course out too. It was still warm enough! And Suzie had brought dessert and we had that outside too. But by then it had got chilly and we went indoors. Into my lovely living room! There we had tea until people started yawning (for once I'm not the early night-obsessed oddball; the others were early sleepers and risers too) and Suzie and Sarah went home. And we agreed there was scope for more! A Teaching and Learning BBQ in the garden perhaps. When it would get a little bit warmer! There is plenty of space!