A fun family party

After a leisurely morning, during which Pater put the last few touches to the chicken monstrosity he'd agreed to make for lunch, we all drove over to my mum's cousin's place in Hendon to help with the setup for the party. We were slightly late — my parents had based their timings on yesterday's traffic, forgetting that it would have been artificially light because no-one would have been driving on the sabbath — but it didn't matter: on arrival, we were greeted by the most efficient sandwich making production line I've ever seen.

Fortunately there was a good turnout. Almost all of my mother's cousins and a number of second cousins. I had a long discussion with someone who bemoaned at length the difficulties hoteliers experienced dealing with fussy eaters — he had, it seems, once been required to cater for a raw vegan — and vegetarians before finally asking, off hand, whether I was a vegetarian. Oops. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one there with fussy dietary requirements. At least one of my cousins is also a veggie, apparently thanks to a bet, and a few other people had given up a range of things, such as dairy and fat and eggs, for Lent.

It was nice to see people I hadn't seen for a while. And doubly nice to see them under happier circumstances than usually — normally we only ever meet up at funerals. In fact, things went so well that R was talking about making it a regular thing.