More wine?....... just give me the bottle.
Cocktails and then wine were served first as we all arrived. Then it was more wine anyone? until we did not care anymore. I speak for myself here. The thing with these dinner parties is that they are not partys at all. In fact they are not even fun or enjoyable. I came to tolerate the times and they just put up with me because I was married to my husband of that time.and support from wifey was expected.
.
More wine anyone?
This is how I wish to remember Elton John. 1973. feathers. platform shoes and playing the piano with his feet.
So this dinner party did not meet this image. Not at all. Not in the least in all of my imaginings did I think I would ever listen to Elton John sitting like a lump of cheese, drinking wine with no clue in my head as to what a curriculum might be. In 1973 I was still at school and the only thoughts were to collect the posters of Elton John from Jackie magazine. As the weeks went past we sellotaped the pictures together and blue tacked them to are wooden cubicle walls in the dormatories if our safe little boarding school.
"It's a human sign
when things go wrong......." warbled the record player on the dresser in the dining room.
I was seated at a dining table in a Victorian house in Bath. a big table with matching chairs, all the plates matched as well. A terraced house . One of the quite big ones in a not to bad area out towards Bristol.The house of some one with a good salary though not one of the big posh Georgian ones that Bath is famous for. Any where else this would be considered a good area, for Bath it was a bit run down.
It was my first teachers dinner party. My husband has recently qualified as a teacher and this was his first teaching job. A dinner given by a teacher in his new department for the beginning of a new year and to welcome new recruits. I was not a teacher. In fact not even close. I worked for a huge department store as one of the section managers. Fabric. Haberdashery. sewing machines that kind of stuff. Ask me about Vogue dress patterns and I could tell you the page number and how much fabric needed and furnish you with the latest supermodel gossip, if you were a regular gossip from the local theatre. Teaching? no. not a clue and as I was about to find out a whole different set of values and people types.All of this mixed in with a lot religion. None of which I was about to get on very well with.
I struggled with it all from the outset. My husband had already met his next conquest in this world This night I did not know any of this. Yet. any way....there I was. At this dinner party. One of many in those days . I now in these days do not even have a table, never mind considering inviting people to my house. It simply does not happen here. never. there is no one I know now that would pay out for someone else to eat their food and be that rude and pretentious in their house.
I had not found this out yet. In fact I would not work this out for another twenty years as it went.
"When scent of her lingers
and temptation's strong...."
More wine anyone?....Oh god yes!
The record playing was Elton John.....Sacrifice. This always brings me back to this dinner party and this evening. Just lately it gets played a lot in the supermarket.......Where I am deciding what will be for dinner one moment and then ......WHAM!!! sat at the dinner table in Bath all over again. In the freezer part just by the fish fingers too.
"into the boundary
of each married man
sweet deceit comes calling
and negativity lands....."
by now the host was humming along as she brought the starters in from the kitchen.
I can not now remember what else was played or even what we ate. Just this song, and that the wine was Australian. Really just started to take off had Australian wine. At one time I would never drink any other kid. And I drank plenty of it too.
This dinner party was the second one that this lady had given. As my husband was a newby he was not invited the week previous along with the heads of department and old timers, we were invited as an after thought, and to cover her backended social faux pas . So others invited this time were a librarian and her husband , an American red Indian from the Sioux tribe. The host who was a teacher of business and economics and her son. a graduate from Oxford university who did not really know what to do with himself after graduation. Me ....and what was I calling my career at this stage? well I was just about to start a new job. Civil servant. Yes this is correct. I had just got a job as a civil servant at a job centre. I had been employed for my customer service skills and was about to embark on what was then termed "front line". This was another part of my life I was to struggle with. I did not know that yet either on this night with the Australian wine sitting opposite an american Indian who said nothing all evening....
And my husband a newly qualified teacher. He now had his first degree. previously he was a time and motion man for British Gas.
"cold, cold heart
hard done by you
some things look better, baby
just passing through....."
More wine anyone? hell yes!
Everyone drank wine except the American Indian. He neither drank or spoke. I drank too much as ever and probably spoke too much.
I used to drink like drowning , and I was.
"and it's no sacrifice
just a simple word
it,s two hearts living
in separate worlds......"
This would have been round about September/October 1989 as I remember that I started the ill fated job as a civil servant before Christmas and bitterly bitterly missed the retail world and all my staff. I had nightmares about the office I then came to work in and the desk I was allotted in view of the clock. The hands on this clock turned slowly and time was very heavy upon them. I had made a bad mistake and office work and filing were not a strong point. I had three months of this to kill until I got back onto the shop floor again. Then I really found out about poverty, unemployment and addictions of all kinds. some I had never heard of. It was the end of the 1980's unemployment was rife and everyone was a drinker or junky to some degree. show me a person who tells you any different about those days and I will show you a liar or a nun.
My big influence was music in those days and my dress sense reflected this. I had my hair every available colour and looked like a traveller.This is possibly why I got the job. Who knows. Who cares. It was more money and a pension.( the same one we now spend actually)
So the scene was set. the cocktails had been consumed and the starters served.
What did we talk about? well the American Indian did not speak. I followed my husbands lead and let him do the talking. So that left the host, the librarian and the oxford Graduate. Do you know what? they talked about religion, singing in the choir and helping at the homeless shelter.
General social disdain of the traveller culture which sprang up in the 1980s and religion. Everyone was Catholic. except me and husband, and American Indian of course as the librarian told us "that he has his own religion"
More wine anyone? oh God yes!
"but it's no sacrifice
no sacrifice
it's no sacrifice at all..."
My husband dominated the conversation filling with existential jumbo mumbo and the Celts, that kind of stuff. and yes Grace was said before the starters.
By this stage I was so bored I nearly screamed.
One of my fave films was Isabelle Adjani in Subway the part where she slams out of a dinner party
"I have never been so bored in all my life!!!!" she stated.
There were more party's like this to come. About two weeks later we were invited to the head of departments house. .....I had not yet learned that "party" in these peoples terms did not meet my ideas.
A party now was wine and chilli served onto paper plates whilst chatting sedately with classical music playing in the background, I turned up to this one in black mini skirt fishnets and one pink and one black stiletto. At first I thought it was a fancy dress party and no one had told me.....but no. The Vicars and clergymen standing around chatting to the teachers were the real thing. My dress code had just turned it into a Tarts and vicars party............
"mutual misunderstanding
after the fact
sensitivity builds a prison
in the final act"
Elton John's song just takes me back to all of this........it took twenty years for me to realise that the words were all to come true for me.
"we loose direction
no stone unturned
no tears to damn you
when jealousy burns"
Well here I am now in 2018.That party was now nearly thirty years ago. I still remember it because of that one song. I loved Early Elton John, sorry though. I hate this song.
My favourite Elton John album and the one I loved at the time...the time being the 1970s when I was still at school was Yellow Brick road.
"Bennie and the jets"......"Saturday nights alright for fighting"......"candle in the wind".......released 1973.
Now that is how I like to remember Elton John and this is how it should be.
no sacrifice at all
no sacrifice at all
no sacrifice at all,
The words are by Bernie Taupin and the music by Elton. This song appears on the album "sleeping with the past" 1989.
A song about a relationship breaking down. If the relationship was a good one the cheating partner would not have been tempted. The relationship was already rocky so one partner had become cynical.as the relationship was so bad giving it up was no sacrifice.Two hearts living in separate worlds so ending it was no sacrifice at all.
The narrator has no tears for the break down of the relationship which led to adultery, as they do not give a damn anymore.
The loss of the relationship was worthless in the end. loosing it and exchanging it for someone else was no sacrifice at all.
Tuesday again already, and a day off in 2018. This song seems to still be haunting me. Needless to say...I do not own this record! The 1980s are really fashionable again this year....though I would have thought that there are "more eighties" songs to play than this. I see ripped jeans and all "kids" that work with me are into this music and especially the Stone roses. I was asked by a teenager.......who has an old record player and collects vinyl, films and memorabilia generally from the 1980s....."what was it like in the 1980's? my mum says it was really depressing...."
so what happened to husband, teachers, and working as a civil servant at a job centre?
Husband and I divorced in 2005. The teachers are mostly retired now. The lady my husband had his fling with was also the Head of the department's dis guard. She died of cancer in 1990(and a broken heart).....Head of department was married. So was my husband (to me at that time) and both let her down. ......a lot of crocodile tears at the funeral to which I was not invited. One party I did not care about missing.
There were plenty of "others" after her too. not always women. There was a Triathlon club, a bicycle, marathons, events away, jobs.....his Cornish family,,,,, his ex wives .......all of which came before me (and in retrospect...his own sons)
The job at the civil service????? well I was not able to cope with it all in the end. I did eight years as a civil servant. got a good salary and a sad life, two step sons (that my husband took no responsibility for. His parents got that call) husbands first wife screaming down the phone whenever she had a drink, my parents in law ruling every inch of our lives, and having to sell up and leave Bath in the end as Husband wanted a better job and more qualifications... Nothing was ever what he wanted....there was always something other than what he had.......I was the least of it!!!
.I was given a severance payment from the civil service for "ill health" basically dear reader I cracked up and became an alcoholic. Years later after a divorce. A few moves and a remarriage it resulted in me getting cancer as well.
Yep that was the 1980s. depressing? yes. And that just one part. the beginning of the 1980s was another story entirely. All did was compound the tragedy with this husband.
Cocktails and then wine were served first as we all arrived. Then it was more wine anyone? until we did not care anymore. I speak for myself here. The thing with these dinner parties is that they are not partys at all. In fact they are not even fun or enjoyable. I came to tolerate the times and they just put up with me because I was married to my husband of that time.and support from wifey was expected.
.
More wine anyone?
This is how I wish to remember Elton John. 1973. feathers. platform shoes and playing the piano with his feet.
So this dinner party did not meet this image. Not at all. Not in the least in all of my imaginings did I think I would ever listen to Elton John sitting like a lump of cheese, drinking wine with no clue in my head as to what a curriculum might be. In 1973 I was still at school and the only thoughts were to collect the posters of Elton John from Jackie magazine. As the weeks went past we sellotaped the pictures together and blue tacked them to are wooden cubicle walls in the dormatories if our safe little boarding school.
"It's a human sign
when things go wrong......." warbled the record player on the dresser in the dining room.
I was seated at a dining table in a Victorian house in Bath. a big table with matching chairs, all the plates matched as well. A terraced house . One of the quite big ones in a not to bad area out towards Bristol.The house of some one with a good salary though not one of the big posh Georgian ones that Bath is famous for. Any where else this would be considered a good area, for Bath it was a bit run down.
It was my first teachers dinner party. My husband has recently qualified as a teacher and this was his first teaching job. A dinner given by a teacher in his new department for the beginning of a new year and to welcome new recruits. I was not a teacher. In fact not even close. I worked for a huge department store as one of the section managers. Fabric. Haberdashery. sewing machines that kind of stuff. Ask me about Vogue dress patterns and I could tell you the page number and how much fabric needed and furnish you with the latest supermodel gossip, if you were a regular gossip from the local theatre. Teaching? no. not a clue and as I was about to find out a whole different set of values and people types.All of this mixed in with a lot religion. None of which I was about to get on very well with.
I struggled with it all from the outset. My husband had already met his next conquest in this world This night I did not know any of this. Yet. any way....there I was. At this dinner party. One of many in those days . I now in these days do not even have a table, never mind considering inviting people to my house. It simply does not happen here. never. there is no one I know now that would pay out for someone else to eat their food and be that rude and pretentious in their house.
I had not found this out yet. In fact I would not work this out for another twenty years as it went.
"When scent of her lingers
and temptation's strong...."
More wine anyone?....Oh god yes!
The record playing was Elton John.....Sacrifice. This always brings me back to this dinner party and this evening. Just lately it gets played a lot in the supermarket.......Where I am deciding what will be for dinner one moment and then ......WHAM!!! sat at the dinner table in Bath all over again. In the freezer part just by the fish fingers too.
"into the boundary
of each married man
sweet deceit comes calling
and negativity lands....."
by now the host was humming along as she brought the starters in from the kitchen.
I can not now remember what else was played or even what we ate. Just this song, and that the wine was Australian. Really just started to take off had Australian wine. At one time I would never drink any other kid. And I drank plenty of it too.
This dinner party was the second one that this lady had given. As my husband was a newby he was not invited the week previous along with the heads of department and old timers, we were invited as an after thought, and to cover her backended social faux pas . So others invited this time were a librarian and her husband , an American red Indian from the Sioux tribe. The host who was a teacher of business and economics and her son. a graduate from Oxford university who did not really know what to do with himself after graduation. Me ....and what was I calling my career at this stage? well I was just about to start a new job. Civil servant. Yes this is correct. I had just got a job as a civil servant at a job centre. I had been employed for my customer service skills and was about to embark on what was then termed "front line". This was another part of my life I was to struggle with. I did not know that yet either on this night with the Australian wine sitting opposite an american Indian who said nothing all evening....
And my husband a newly qualified teacher. He now had his first degree. previously he was a time and motion man for British Gas.
"cold, cold heart
hard done by you
some things look better, baby
just passing through....."
More wine anyone? hell yes!
Everyone drank wine except the American Indian. He neither drank or spoke. I drank too much as ever and probably spoke too much.
I used to drink like drowning , and I was.
"and it's no sacrifice
just a simple word
it,s two hearts living
in separate worlds......"
This would have been round about September/October 1989 as I remember that I started the ill fated job as a civil servant before Christmas and bitterly bitterly missed the retail world and all my staff. I had nightmares about the office I then came to work in and the desk I was allotted in view of the clock. The hands on this clock turned slowly and time was very heavy upon them. I had made a bad mistake and office work and filing were not a strong point. I had three months of this to kill until I got back onto the shop floor again. Then I really found out about poverty, unemployment and addictions of all kinds. some I had never heard of. It was the end of the 1980's unemployment was rife and everyone was a drinker or junky to some degree. show me a person who tells you any different about those days and I will show you a liar or a nun.
My big influence was music in those days and my dress sense reflected this. I had my hair every available colour and looked like a traveller.This is possibly why I got the job. Who knows. Who cares. It was more money and a pension.( the same one we now spend actually)
So the scene was set. the cocktails had been consumed and the starters served.
What did we talk about? well the American Indian did not speak. I followed my husbands lead and let him do the talking. So that left the host, the librarian and the oxford Graduate. Do you know what? they talked about religion, singing in the choir and helping at the homeless shelter.
General social disdain of the traveller culture which sprang up in the 1980s and religion. Everyone was Catholic. except me and husband, and American Indian of course as the librarian told us "that he has his own religion"
More wine anyone? oh God yes!
"but it's no sacrifice
no sacrifice
it's no sacrifice at all..."
My husband dominated the conversation filling with existential jumbo mumbo and the Celts, that kind of stuff. and yes Grace was said before the starters.
By this stage I was so bored I nearly screamed.
One of my fave films was Isabelle Adjani in Subway the part where she slams out of a dinner party
"I have never been so bored in all my life!!!!" she stated.
There were more party's like this to come. About two weeks later we were invited to the head of departments house. .....I had not yet learned that "party" in these peoples terms did not meet my ideas.
A party now was wine and chilli served onto paper plates whilst chatting sedately with classical music playing in the background, I turned up to this one in black mini skirt fishnets and one pink and one black stiletto. At first I thought it was a fancy dress party and no one had told me.....but no. The Vicars and clergymen standing around chatting to the teachers were the real thing. My dress code had just turned it into a Tarts and vicars party............
"mutual misunderstanding
after the fact
sensitivity builds a prison
in the final act"
Elton John's song just takes me back to all of this........it took twenty years for me to realise that the words were all to come true for me.
"we loose direction
no stone unturned
no tears to damn you
when jealousy burns"
My favourite Elton John album and the one I loved at the time...the time being the 1970s when I was still at school was Yellow Brick road.
"Bennie and the jets"......"Saturday nights alright for fighting"......"candle in the wind".......released 1973.
Now that is how I like to remember Elton John and this is how it should be.
no sacrifice at all
no sacrifice at all
no sacrifice at all,
The words are by Bernie Taupin and the music by Elton. This song appears on the album "sleeping with the past" 1989.
A song about a relationship breaking down. If the relationship was a good one the cheating partner would not have been tempted. The relationship was already rocky so one partner had become cynical.as the relationship was so bad giving it up was no sacrifice.Two hearts living in separate worlds so ending it was no sacrifice at all.
The narrator has no tears for the break down of the relationship which led to adultery, as they do not give a damn anymore.
The loss of the relationship was worthless in the end. loosing it and exchanging it for someone else was no sacrifice at all.
Tuesday again already, and a day off in 2018. This song seems to still be haunting me. Needless to say...I do not own this record! The 1980s are really fashionable again this year....though I would have thought that there are "more eighties" songs to play than this. I see ripped jeans and all "kids" that work with me are into this music and especially the Stone roses. I was asked by a teenager.......who has an old record player and collects vinyl, films and memorabilia generally from the 1980s....."what was it like in the 1980's? my mum says it was really depressing...."
so what happened to husband, teachers, and working as a civil servant at a job centre?
Husband and I divorced in 2005. The teachers are mostly retired now. The lady my husband had his fling with was also the Head of the department's dis guard. She died of cancer in 1990(and a broken heart).....Head of department was married. So was my husband (to me at that time) and both let her down. ......a lot of crocodile tears at the funeral to which I was not invited. One party I did not care about missing.
There were plenty of "others" after her too. not always women. There was a Triathlon club, a bicycle, marathons, events away, jobs.....his Cornish family,,,,, his ex wives .......all of which came before me (and in retrospect...his own sons)
The job at the civil service????? well I was not able to cope with it all in the end. I did eight years as a civil servant. got a good salary and a sad life, two step sons (that my husband took no responsibility for. His parents got that call) husbands first wife screaming down the phone whenever she had a drink, my parents in law ruling every inch of our lives, and having to sell up and leave Bath in the end as Husband wanted a better job and more qualifications... Nothing was ever what he wanted....there was always something other than what he had.......I was the least of it!!!
.I was given a severance payment from the civil service for "ill health" basically dear reader I cracked up and became an alcoholic. Years later after a divorce. A few moves and a remarriage it resulted in me getting cancer as well.
Yep that was the 1980s. depressing? yes. And that just one part. the beginning of the 1980s was another story entirely. All did was compound the tragedy with this husband.
1 comment:
fabulous recap of the life of a party with plenty of wine served and a whole host of characters! ha!
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