So, I will be the first one to admit that I’ve
been somewhat negligent over the blog lately. If you know me at all well, like
my Lakes do, you’d know to read between the lines of that sentence until you
end up with something that looks more like this: ‘So, I’ve been coerced into
writing this post for the blog by the lovely
Emily, because I’ve been avoiding the blog for the past year or so like a
medieval peasant trying to avoid the plague. “Stay away from me plague, boils and agonizing death just aren’t in this
summer, pastel colours and lace are! Don’t you know anything?”’ It’s not
that I actively dislike writing, actually the opposite is true because I find it
quite therapeutic, it’s just that I am as bone-idle as they come, and it takes
effort to get back into the swing of putting words on computer screen (paper is
so passé). Yes, I can admit it, I am lazy. Maybe one day they’ll invent a group
for people like me, I’m thinking something along the lines of an Alcoholics
Anonymous knock-off (See! I’m even too lazy to think of something original). I’ll go there and sit down in the
circle? Rows? (Any alcoholics out there want to set me straight on that? When
you’re finished drinking, of course.) and then we’ll all sit in way awkward silence because everyone
will be too lazy to take the initiative to discuss their problems. Anyway, as
you can see, I’m going ever so slightly off-topic, so I will stop this runaway
train of weirdness before all of you come away from the article going “Huh? An
alcoholic clad in pastel colours had the plague on a train? Lalita’s finally
cracked.” I haven’t, I assure you, it’s just that once I get over my astounding
laziness, like the humongous hurdle it is, the words just come spilling out
before I can put the reins on. So sue me. Or alternatively, just try reading one of Kathleen’s posts; I think
that will put my slight oddness into sharp perspective and you’ll all come
running back to me.
Still here I see? I told you so. And you’ll be pleased to know we’re veering sharply
back onto track now. The other day, the one you may know better as June 6th
2012, we had a Lake version of a birthday party for our lovely Amanda, who just
turned 21. I say a Lake version because it was neither a birthday party nor the day she celebrates her
birth, which happened nearly 2 weeks ago. Don’t judge us- the Lakes are all
currently busy on work placements, which don’t leave any of us with much time
to meet up. Except for my Dark Lord Emily and I, who happened to be working at
the same school; the Dark Lord knows I will follow her anywhere (even if I did
technically get there first). So we were very excited for this day to come, a
day which Emily, Kathleen and I had planned down to the last detail (food,
location, knives, hot water- don’t worry, all will be revealed in due time). I
say it wasn’t a birthday party, per se, because girls like the Lakes don’t do
wild birthday parties filled with people. In fact, the amount of people I know
could probably be counted using just my fingers (thumbs aren’t fingers!). Safe to say, apart from dark horse Kathleen, we
are not exactly social butterflies. More like, um…antisocial butterflies?
Anyway, as Amanda is addicted to tea, we decided to throw her our own version
of Afternoon Tea at The Ritz, kind of like high tea meets picnic. Sophisticated
meets fun with friends. Think of it like this: Glee doing one of their zany Glee mash-ups of a Sarah Brightman
song and something by the Beatles. We had everything covered. Good location: a
park with a gazebo because it was intermittently bucketing down with rain. Check. Food: about 4 bags of shopping
from the supermarket, including scones, jam and clotted cream, plus
Kathleen-baked cakes. Check. Knives to cut scones, courtesy of Poundland.
Check. Hot water, tea bags, sugar and milk for tea. Check. Amanda. Check. All
the ingredients you need for a perfect day. However, it just goes to show you
that old proverbs stand the test of time because
they’re true! Those who fail to plan, plan to fail, and boy did we fail
because there was no way on Earth we could have planned for what happened.
While Emily went to collect Amanda from our
pre-arranged meeting point, Kathleen and I went on ahead to the park to set
everything up under the gazebo. We had a giant sheet to sit on, cake stand to
put cakes on, plates, cutlery, chips and dip, jam. Lots of lovely things to
tempt us gannets while we set up. And set up we did, in order to give Amanda
the full effect when she arrived. All the food was opened, set out and ready to
eat, wrappers and packaging disposed of or hidden, cakes frosted and set on the
display. In other words, nothing was in the right state to be picked up and
moved to another location. Everything was perfect, and then in an obscure
little park in the middle of nowhere-town, London, 11 teenage boys decided to
show up and crash our party. They thought it would be a good idea to walk into
an already clearly occupied gazebo,
crash around on skateboards, bounce balls around near our delicate cakes, smoke
marijuana and try to sellotape me both in
and out of the gazebo, when I went to
make a frantic call to Emily. I have nothing against skateboards, or balls (the
sports kind, not the other kind- what kind of girl do you think I am?) or
marijuana. Apart from the smell. I do have something against that. I don’t even
have anything against sellotape. I do, however, have something against that combination
when they crash our party, proceed to acknowledge that they’ve crashed our
party by first asking if we were having a birthday, and then singing Happy
Birthday to Amanda when she finally showed up with Emily (Were they trying to be ironic? Or were they just
too drug-addled to realise how paradoxical that whole scenario was?). I have
something against 11 teenage boys driving us out of the location for our party,
watching us pack up and leave and then having the bare-faced cheek to ask for
scones because they had the bloody munchies. Well boys, I have some advice for
you: If YOU fail to prepare for your munchies when you smoke marijuana, then
prepare to FAIL (and feel bloody hungry to boot). How does it feel, huh???
Failure hurts, doesn’t it? Having to walk down a busy road looking like a
refugee running from some war-torn, picnic-obsessed country, loaded down with
badly packed sheets, crockery and food, with Emily actually carrying the cake
stand (with cakes) to our new location. It hurts like you wouldn’t believe. I
will give you ten guesses as to where we ended up, but if you know us you’ll
only need one. Drum roll please…That’s right, you guessed it: Starbucks! We
begged the manager (?), who was insanely nice, to let us have our little feast
in Starbucks, as long as we promised to buy something. So there we ended up, in
our usual haunt, not birthday-like at all, apart from all the food that I’m
sure earned us weird looks from the others patrons. Look at it this way, when
was the last time you walked into Starbucks (or your coffee shop of choice- we
don’t discriminate here) and saw four girls sitting at a table with a cake
stand, eating scones and jam, sandwiches and chips and dip? You never, right?
So that’s how Amanda’s birthday got really, super bizarre. And is probably a
day I will not forget for a long time.
The End.
“I had rather be an oyster than a
man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.”- George Berkeley
Love, Lalita xxx
