Dawn very kindly invited me to her Christmas luncheon party which was a perfect social occasion to wear my mink coat. Not only was it also an exceptionally cold day, but I had a feeling Dawn would be most disappointed if I didn't show it off.
The lunch was held at one of the local hotels, and Dawn was at the door to welcome us. She was thrilled to see me in my mink coat and declared that she had also worn hers! Jeanette and I went to inspect it - a beautiful fur jacket that had been originally owned by Dawn's mother. Next to it was a large fur hand muff which Dawn's grand-daughter had brought. Then Jean arrived and she too was wearing her fur coat, which she had not worn for twenty years, but she said she knew I would wear mine so she decided to dust hers off. As suspected, the fur coat revival has begun. It won't be long now before all the village ladies are swanning around wrapped in fur and looking decidedly more exotic than they did last Christmas.
After supping wine around the enormous log fire, we sat down to lunch during which our hostess ensured everyone kept changing seats and mingling. To finish the party we sang several carols, unfortunately somewhat off key because the piano was in slight need of tuning. Although to be fair, it might have been the fellow who volunteered to accompany us whose piano-playing was slightly rusty.
Happily fed and watered, as we drove back down the hill, which was beginning to quite severely frost over, Gordon told the tale of a Christmas party when only he and one other had been able to get their cars up to the hotel due to the icy conditions. Everyone else had sensibly left their vehicles at the bottom and walked up. At around midnight when they left the establishment, he saw the other man head for his car but he slipped, and proceeded to slide all the way down the hill on his backside. A cautionary tale and one I shall remember on New Year's Eve when we will be celebrating at this same hotel.
Earlier today I met a woman outside the village shop who was worried about walking home down her lane and slipping over because it was so icy. I offered to walk her back but she insisted whe would be fine and confided in me that when the ice gets really bad, she wears woollen socks over her gumboots. I think hearing these two stories on the same day must be an omen so next week I will prepare for Hogmanay by seeing if I have any woolly socks which will fit over my dancing shoes.
Talk last night in the pub apparently centred for hours on Jeanette and Gordon's trip last week to London, and from thence to Brussels, which they nearly didn't make because the night before they were due to leave for Europe, Jeanette realised she had left their passports at home. With great ingenuity, they telephoned Eric who had a spare key to their house. Eric found the passports, drove to Pitlochry railway station and handed them to the guard of the sleeper train which was travelling down from Inverness. Gordon met the train at Euston at 6.00am the next morning and the guard gave him their passports. I cannot imagine this happening anywhere else!
We chatted about the deer in the garden and the need to give them names. Gordon expressed a desire to buy some more - well, it makes an interesting alternative to garden gnomes, and they do look very charming, twinkling in the garden bed, turning their heads to and fro in a rather proprietorial fashion.
As we reached home, I told Jeanette and Gordon how I have been regularly watering the pretty flowering plant in my bedroom - that is, up until a few days ago, when I realised that the flowers were made of plastic. The really odd thing is that every time I poured a cupful of water into the plant's tray, it got soaked up into the flower pot - so it was an understandable mistake on my part, don't you think?
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