Afternoon Tea, Saris, Conversations about Childbirth, Medical Ailments and More

I am leaving for the UK and Europe for nine weeks on Sunday with a couple of friends from high school (I'll call them A and S from now onwards, as I imagine I'll be writing about them often over the next few weeks if I can access a computer). They decided that since we are going away, we'd like to get together with a select few close friends that we haven't seen for a while from school before we go away.

The idea was to have an afternoon tea with a sari theme, prompted by the fact that A's boyfriend had gotten her a sari from Sri Lanka, and also because one of our friends is Indian and suggested we should have a sari afternoon tea for fun, I guess. Well, not having a sari, I went in normal clothes bringing a pot of mushroom soup I made this morning (the same as I made yesterday) and a custard tart. When I arrived, A and S were still cooking/baking. The others arrived subsequently and consisted of A's boyfriend L, who will be travelling with us for some of the trip, our Indian friend, our pharmacist friend and a friend who was recently married this year and her husband.

The food was pretty good. We had my soup with bread, some scones with jam and cream, and iced custard scroll from Baker's Delight, some improv potato and pumpkin pies that were pretty good, my custard tart, strawberries, lettuce (don't ask why), and a chocolate loaf that didn't quite cook through properly for various reasons but had a really nice crusty top and saucy cake mixture inside which made it like a self-saucing chocolate cake-pudding. We also had tea, all with mismatched mugs. One of our friends had one that was about the same size as the teapot!

Our Indian friend had brought over a bunch of saris and accessories, so she decked us out with them, which was educational and lots of fun. The Sri Lankan one was unusual, and as we couldn't find how they put it on, we made it up.

Afterwards, we sat around chatting about very amusing things, including my friend's husband's anecdotes from teaching in a difficult high school (where all the kids think he's gay), and our pharmacist friend on some pretty gruesome childbirth stories and embarrassing medical ailments from work, some graphic enough that they might put some people I know to the blush. Somehow the conversation turned into talking about defecation and elephant's doings, which was amusing, but something which doesn't normally occur at our usual gatherings (also mostly food-centric).

As we were too full from our very extended afternoon tea (it lasted until about 17:30), we passed on dinner. Our friend left with her husband as they had to unpack some things after moving residence. The rest of us moved to the living room, where we proceeded with talk of other matters including one of our friend's complicated love life, our travel plans, um feminine "assets" and life in general.

I got dropped off at home, as A's place is in the same suburb as mine and I have just finished a very late dinner. I have to say that I love our intimate gatherings. As individuals (if I can be forgiven for sounding arrogant), we are all pretty intelligent, open-minded, easygoing, appreciate many things culturally, and are always having good food and entertaining conversation together. I am a bit disappointed that one of our friends couldn't make it today, a medical student, as she's studying for exams.

I didn't really fall in with this group of friends until we were in Year 11 at school, even though most of us had been in the same year group since Grade 7. In a sense, it was more like realising that we didn't really fit into the other 'groups' at school and so we are practically the 'outcast' collection of oddballs. Only consider. Within our midst we have two high school teachers, two engineers, a pharmacist, a designer, a mathematician, a future neurologist and an archaeologist-scientist. So I'm not disparaging ourselves. I just blame almost everyone else at school for being so damned dull. I say almost everyone, because three of my closest friends from high school aren't in this particular group and they are also different in their own ways.

All in all, a vastly amusing and enjoyable day. If only I didn't have this exam tomorrow.