Hosting For 32, Emergency Chairs and a Fair Bit of Procrastination

Don’t mind me, I’m just over here counting heads, glasses & (not enough) seating or cutlery - it’s all under control (& other lies I tell myself)

Good morning!

I hope you have all had a lovely week ! I have been emersed, working on 3 campaigns that are really pushing me creatively. This means I have completed an Olympic level of procrastination, which worried me at first, but I realised that whenever I am faced with a big new task, procrastination is a vital part of the process.

My creative process uses the little known ‘Fred Flintstone method’. You know how he had to go backwards before his car could go forwards? That pretty much sums up how I work best. Creative reverse gear fully engaged. HA. Fellow procrastinators please say you get this?

Let’s move on!

In other news…

I have recently been diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome - I must admit the creeping numbness in the day was starting to worry me - I have had it at night for YEARS but the symptoms have definitely got worse lately.

I arrived at the surgery to be met by a lovely new doctor who listened to me telling him alllllll of my hand related woes and he leant forward and asked a heavily weighted question … ‘Do you have numbness in your little fingers?’

Don’t worry listener, this is absolutely not the part where I spiral dramatically and briefly consider that a double amputation might be on the table. Absolutely not. Although somewhere, the woman who lives in my head was playing a gameshow jeopardy audio. Quite loudly actually.

No. I tell him. No numbness in the pinkies. (Please let that be the right answer please let that be the right answer…)

He leaned back, smiled and confirmed it was treatable with a steroid injection. Relief! I’d suspected carpal tunnel for a while, but I was very pleased to hear it wasn’t anything more sinister. My Mum had it and she ended up having the op. Apple/tree and all that.

So, you know how my previous needle wielding doctor had famously won Come Dine With Me? I wasn’t sure we’d ever top that, but when my GP rolled out the Ultra Sound machine with a flourish, it must be said, he told me that he looks after the rugby team, The Harlequins - and I was VERY impressed indeed.

He explained everything he was about to do and showed me what was going on inside my freshly gelled wrist on the screen, something like ‘Here’s the nerve, here’s the vein, here’s the carpal tunnel, see?’ (Narrator - she kind of saw - mainly a blurr of black and white shapes that could have been anything, but go on) and where he was about to inject (I am fighting with the woman in my brain who’s desperate to ask if it’s a boy or girl, NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE VERBALISED. Someone please shut that woman up)

Out came the needle. (Woman in my brain IMMEDIATELY silenced) NGL the needle was longer than the width of my wrist. I watched it all happening on the screen with the occasional quick glance at my outstretched arm on the crisp white papery pillow and I genuinely thought the needle was going to pop out the other side!

I never used to be able to watch anything remotely ‘needley’ - but since Gav was diagnosed (blood cancer incase you’re new) he has had SO many blood tests that now be are both totally unphased by needles. To the point of watching with no squeamishness, and being fascinated by how clever doctors, nurses and phlebotomists are. Gav has had the same lady for 10 years and she is MAGIC. (Although she hasn’t won Come Dine With Me or looked after a whole rugby team…as far as we know)

I have had both wrists ‘done’ over the last week or so and right now we are ‘a bit sore’. But if it works and stops me waking up 10 times in the night with dead hands that feel like bananas, and cures the creeping numbness in the morning, I will be SO happy! I doubt that moving a sofa in and out of my lounge 3 times was my finest post injection decision, but what’s a girl to do when the brief requests it. I do love a furniture shuffle but this was a lot of single handed shuffling. ‘To you To me’ was more ‘To me To me’

ANYWAY - next up EASTER. We are hosting ALOT over Easter - more by accident than actual planning and I must admit I am looking forward to it immensely!

Back in 1993, Gav and I went backpacking and we landed in Sydney just in time for Gav to be best man for one of his best friends. It feels like a life time ago. Let’s be honest, it was a lifetime ago haha! We haven’t seen him many times over the last 32 years, but he is coming home next week and we are getting the band back together so there will be about 14 of us for lunch at ours (pray it doesn’t rain) Our oldest friends - some go all the way back to primary school - so it will be a fab afternoon.

The girls will probably drink a bit too much Prosecco, swap menopause stories and wonder how we suddenly all got so old, and the boys will start by discussing Trump and then move on to more pressing subjects, such as not being able to get a sock on without pulling a muscle these days.

There will no doubt be a lively group discussion about the current global state of affairs & then we’ll all drunkenly declare love for each other, say it’s been far too long and we should see each other more (spoiler, it’ll probably be years because we are all rubbish at organising each other unless one of us is visiting from Australia and a date becomes pressing) and everyone will be home by tea time.

On Easter Sunday, we are ‘doing’ Christmas again as we had a few men down on Boxing Day so it was all cancelled. Our numbers have grown and now there will be 18 of us for roast dinner. Am I stressing? Nope. I am in complete denial. It will be FIIIIIIINE.

That said, I’m deep in “important research mode.” We’ve got two coeliacs and a nut allergy in the mix, but don’t worry—I’m a seasoned allergy caterer. Hardly anyone has ever died in my kitchen.

My main concern? SEATING, glasses, cutlery and general logistics.

So let’s have a gander at some stuff I have been looking at.

EMERGENCY CHAIRS. We have a store of these that we found on a skip haha ! They are so useful and I have found the original source and they are on sale!

FOLDING CHAIR LINKED HERE

And to keep our guests’ bottoms in utmost comfort…

FRILL CUSHION LINKED HERE also available in navy and jade

ALSO available are matching napkins, runners and tablecloths all at a fab price point

AND TEA TOWELS with a frill. A FRILL.

VELVET SEAT PAD LINKED HERE comes in 5 colours - Love this

Now, I am a huge fan of a goblet style wine glass, mainly because it can be used for more than wine. I love love love pretty, pressed glass style glasses and I have found some DELICIOUS ones in Matalan (available for delivery)

The photos on line are not very pretty, but the glasses are and they come in clear and pale pink too. LINKED HERE from about £3.50

Luckily, Dunelm photos are much nicer - I’ve gone off piste with a tumbler, but the amber colour is lovely isn’t it!

LUXE HIGHBALL TUMBLER £2.50

MANGO coming up with the goods at under a fiver LINKED HERE

I feel at this juncture, I should apologise about the random sizing of my photos - but it is 11.45pm and this email needs to be sent in less than 8 hours…. talk about skid in by the seat of my pants this week!

Back to the pressing question of hosting for more people than we have chairs, glasses or cutlery for….

I really love the trend for bamboo style cutlery, and it is not a cheap option, so I dug a bit deeper…

BAMBOO STYLE 16 PIECE CUTLERY SET LINKED

As usual, I have become sidetracked and *may have fallen down a rabbit hole, but it can’t just be the table that’s dressed nicely can it

LOOK at that tie belt! On sale at a 3rd of what it was and available in all sizes! Will it be warm enough this weekend… a quick look at BBC weather confirms that sunshine is looking highly questionable

SHIRT DRESS LINKED It’s sunny somewhere

Right folks, that is it for this week - short and sweet! Time to crack on with our days- Gav and I are on a mission with a power tool or two for a job I have with Robert Dyas - if our cunning plan works, it’ll be so cool! If not, we’ll probably just change our names and escape to Acapulco and you’ll never hear from us again.

Have a lovely day! See you next week. Hopefully.

Love

Sally xxx

The Sunday Edit is free and always will be - I use affiliate links where I can, to help keep it that way :)