My Big Fat Half Ethiopean Party

It was my landlady Vicky's birthday and she threw a humongus party for her collection of very interesting friends.

If I calculated correctly (because I am too scared to ask, and she is too precarious to tell) according to her claim that she was born in the year of the Rabbit but she is older than my father, then she would have just turned 69.

What a kick arse number.

The Night Before
The festivities started the night before with the preparations that reminded me of the days when I was a child and my grandmother used to gather the family around the round table and form a production line making dumplings, wontons, sushi, bamboo leaf parcels (for Dragon Boat festival), a real ritual around food preparation and special times in the calendar to give meaning to mundane things like the passage of time. Vicky had gathered around 4 or five girl friends of hers all buzzing around the house slicing and dicing and marinating bits that make up of what I can see as a mountainous amount of food.

And then we kinda got drunk. Well, I had two glasses, no more than the others, except they are all about 40 years older than me and they had all been way too tired. So the evening ended slightly grimly with the mentioning of a few infamous events of various peoples lives and some vile cursing. Suddenly having realised that she had just cursed a few of the people that she in fact actually love very much (don't we all get that some times??) my landlady presented us with a vessel of water in a bottle made into the shape of the Catholic Madonna. 'This is Holy water from Mother Teresa - we must put it on our head to chase my curse away'. I have never really been that religious in my life but being slightly amused and tipsy at the time it just kinda made sense (and to be polite) to just slap the water on my head.

The Morning
I spent the morning giving out Berrocca tablets to my landlady and our various house guests, who at 7am in the morning went back to work on the mountains of food but obviously still suffering from the over indulgence of the night before. One of them that wasn't there last night (but was cursed at - I didn't say anything, of course) turned up with the flu. So I administered Lemsip and some phenylephrine action and wrapped her in a towel. She said Vicky would never talk to her if she didn't risk her life turning up to her party. Then there was the scratched elbow of Vicky's Jamaican Vegetarian son that needed a bit of Antiflame and patching up. Some one else had a burn that was also bound to happen and I whipped out the ice pack, and then the timely attendence to a cut from a broken plate. I do feel like a nurse. At lease useful because they won't let any one 'junior' near food preparation, even though I am the only one in the room that can boast a food blog. I do pride myself in my culinary skills, but given that there are five large elderly ladies yelling at each other welding their knives in the air in a very small kitchen I thought it just wasn't really my place unless was called upon.

The Party
Ding dong --- I think that was a flash back from one of the skits from 'Who's Line Is It Anyway' where you had to guess who exactly the party guest was and stuff? From 3pm they streamed in and the party was in full swing. Vicky has a pretty active life in her retirement, apart from being very active at her Church and the Ethiopian community, she does everything from yoga, bridge, acupuncture, majong, meals on wheels, the retired staff club, the Apartment Council, the anti-Madonna-adopting-Ugandan-Baby action group, and making her own curtains. And being both Ethiopian and Italian she feels like she has to invite everyone she knows. But because she is so eccentric and peculiar, not everyone and anyone are actually friends with her. so you can guess that the characters that filter through the system to be very very interesting. Particularly at the age of 60 - 90, a lot of these individuals have lived very full and adventurous lives. Some of them have not only lived through WWII, but things like the Hungarian Revolution, the Ethiopian Revolution, the golden sixties in San Francisco, deaths of their own children, suicides of lovers, bankruptcy, divorce, drug overdoses, rubbing shoulders wit the rich and famous, plane crashes, miracle cures and sordid affairs... So what's me the young lass of 28 to do when an oldie sits me down to dish out the dirt of their lives?










On the right is only a very small part of the spread. The Ethiopian curries spice the room and bring out some tears, while the Italian classics fill everyone up with comfort and satisfaction. My highlight will have to be the soft, moist Ingera bread (seen here rolled), the most typical Ethiopian carb, dipped in a prawn and octopus coconut seafood fanfare. And the Strawberries in Cointreau and orange juice is the recipe I'll be taking home with me.




























This is a bit of dancing action later on. Don't you think Vicky looked pretty hot in her bright green designer frock for a Nana her age??






Late into the evening
The dusk sank into a smokey grey and only three guests remain. Two very well dressed Ethiopian grandmas who sit very gracefully with their small handbags tucked on top of their closed knees, nodding to each other as they discuss family affairs, and Mrs J the 75 year old widowed Irish lady, who had just finished a conversation with poor Emma, who looked like she fled the party.

Mrs J said, as she sat me down, 'I thought your friend was only 15!! I didn't know you were the same age!! I'm sorry I gave her brain damage, haaaa haaaa haaaaa!!'
('Great,' I thought to myself)
'I'm a Catholic, but not a very good one. I wasn't a virgin when I got married. I started having sexual intercourse when I was only 17, when I moved to London. But it was all about just intercourse. I never loved any of them. '
To my absolute bemusement she went on to describe every detail of her sexual activities with her late husband, particularly elaborating the fact that he was very 'well-endowed'.
'You know, Sarah Brightman wrote in a newspaper article that although the marriage to Andrew Lloyd Webber ended badly, she enjoyed life with him because he was well endowed. And I think that has everything to do with sex with a man, don't you think dear?' She said.
'Musicians are generally renowned for that sort of stuff, I guess, Mrs J.' I replied.
'The ecstasy and excitement of having him inside me just made me want to forget myself. I would never want to look at another man again. I decided that it was then I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Have you felt that about a man before my dear? Well I guess you are still young, aren't you dear?'
I am speechless, I am blushing, the proper Ethiopian ladies are blushing. I am suddenly feeling like I am the biggest prude in the world because I am too shy to over talk a 75 year old widow on the simple matter of sex. When did they become so liberated and I so dull???

The Aftermath

They have all gone and its 1am. I am still eating and candidly making a small rocket fuel concoction in my goblet. Vicky pulls out her shisha and we have another good puff.

Apart from a slightly smaller mountain of food left over there is also a small mountain of empty plates. I am thinking of the conversations we are going to have next.

'They came, they ate, and drank, and then pissed off. All I did was clean up and worry and stress and stuck talking to people I don't even like. This is the last party I am ever going to have.' She said.

'They told me that's what you said last year.' I replied, exhaling.

Some More Animal Friends

I am concious that I have been very slack at the moment with blogging but please believe me that I have been kept very busy away from my lap top. Updates to come below in a day or two, but thought I'd entrall you with images of some fuzzy friends for now.

Blakki the Pub Cat
This is the Pub Cat who would easily inspire a song by Andrew Lloyd Webber, that lives at The Seven Stars, a very classical hole in the wall English pub around the corner from the Law Courts near my work











Bird and Babies*
On a recent trip to Oxford, the Merton College Mummy Duck was not very impressed with me when I stood in her way to the river. My apologies again but I think your bundles of joy are just gorgeous.
*(Bird and Baby is also the nickname of a famous Oxford pub called Eagle and Child)




Meanwhile Back at the Farm in New Zealand
Dad sent me some pics of Merlin who's been busy on the job with Alma Thud. The crazy blood thirsty kid is not even five months old! Look at that strut!

Skimbleshank`The Railway Cat > The Night Train Anthem

On my seemingly endless railway journey around Europe I have made it a ritual to break into song upon embarking on night trains to the pleasant beat of Andrew Lloyd Webber and TS Elliot´s Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat , and most suitably this time, cos we are heading towards the most northern part of the northern hemisphere i´ve ever gone to - DENMARK!! Join me ladies and gentleman ---

Skimbleshanks the Railway Cat, the Cat of the Railway Train

There's a whisper down the line at eleven thirty-nine

When the Night Mail's ready to depart

Saying, "Skimble, where is Skimble?Has he gone to hunt the thimble?

We must find him or the train can't start"

All the guards and all the porters

And the station master's daughters

Would be searching high and low

Saying "Skimble where is Skimble for unless he's very nimble

Then the night mail just can't go."

At eleven forty-two with the signal overdue

And the passengers all frantic to a man

That's when I would appear and I'd saunter to the rear

I'd been busy in the luggage van!

Then he gave one flash of his glass-green eyes

And the signal went "All Clear!"

They'd be off at last to the northern part of the Northern Hemisphere!

Skimbleshanks the Railway CatThe Cat of the Railway Train

You might say that by and large it was me who was in charge

Of the Sleeping Car Express

From the driver and the guards to the bagmen playing cards

I would supervise them all more or less

Down the corridor he paces and examines all the faces

Of the travellers in the first and the third

He established control by a regular patrol

And he'd know at once if anything occurred

He would watch you without winking and he saw what you were thinking

And it's certain that he didn't approve

Of hilarity and riot so that folk were very quiet

When Skimble was about and on the move

You could play no pranks with Skimbleshanks!

He's a cat that couldn't be ignored

So nothing went wrong on the Northern Mail

When Skimbleshanks was aboard

It was very pleasant when they'd found their little den

With their name written up on the door

And the berth was very neat with a newly folded sheet

And not a speck of dust upon the floor

There was every sort of light

You could make it dark or bright

And a button you could turn to make a breeze

And a funny little basin you're supposed to wash your face in

And a crank to shut the window should you sneeze

Then the guard looked in politely and would ask you very brightly,

"Do you like your morning tea weak or strong?"

But I was just behind him and was ready to remind him

For Skimble won't let anything go wrong

When they crept into their cosy berth and pulled up the counterpane

They all could reflect that it was very nice

o know that they wouldn't be bothered by mice

They can leave all that to the Railway Cat

In the watches of the night I was always fresh and bright

Every now and then I'd have a cup of tea

With perhaps a drop of scotch while I was keeping on the watch

Only stopping here and there to catch a flea

They were fast asleep at Crewe and so they never knew

That I was walking up and down the station

They were sleeping all the while I was busy at Carlisle

Where I met the station master with elation

They might see me at Dumfries if I summoned the police

If there was anything they ought to know about

When they got to Gallowgate there they did not have to wait

For Skimbleshanks would help them to get out!

nd he gives a wave of his long brown tail

Which says "I'll see you again!

You'll meet without fail on the Midnight Mail

The Cat of the Railway Train!"