Entertaining?

For the first time since "the Bobs" (as our builders were predictably christened by us despite all their names being Andy) left we had people for dinner last night. Our guests were drawn from what I think pass for the usual sources - work, university, parents from school. We had been to one couple's house for dinner recently and she had cooked fantastically so a degree of pressure to perform was being felt. While a back street driver on these occasions I enjoy the rituals of feeding people - finding and polishing silver; choosing drink; the hopeless hunt for muslin culminating in the decanting of port through a pair of tights; buying good cheese; rushing home; carefully washing such good things as we have afterwards; putting everything away through the morning haze of hangover (and yes I have the inevitable wholesomeness of the school coffee morning to cope with).

While I enjoy all that, the best bit is having people here, some of them people we used to see every week and now see all too rarely, and laughing. I can't at this point remember where the conversation went (it will come back and I'll cringe later) - I just know that, as it always does in this house, it descended rapidly. My broad philosophical approach to entertaining (if its sensible to have such a thing) is to put people in a place where they can have fun generally involving the consumption of drink, but then expect them to return the favour by doing so. We had a great time last night - good guests, who can come again.