Well, we had the Reading Group Ghost Story evening last night which Joe was so keen on and, as I suspected would be the case, the members stayed away in droves so that there were just the six of us and Joe's customary over-catering. Anyway, it gives me the excuse I needed to say that those reading group meetings held at our house are not so well attended as those actually in the village whither the majority can walk, so we'll take our turn bringing a plate or a bottle but not host any more.
I actually quite like hosting things, but Joe gets a bee in his bonnet and puts out dozens of china cups, loads of silver and scores of candles which tends to turn a simple social evening into a major chore. The pots can't be put in the dishwasher, and the setting up and clearing up take hours instead of minutes. Apart from occasional semi-formal dinners, I am of the cast iron pan full of casserole set on the middle of the kitchen table school of entertaining so that everyone (including me) can just enjoy themselves without fuss and help themselves to as much or as little food as they fancy.
Having said that, the evening would actually have been quite enjoyable if had not been for the terrible airless heat from all those candles - more even than Joe's usual since he felt that a ghost story evening should be entirely candle-lit! Never let anyone tell you that the houses of the wealthy before the twentieth century were cold: even allowing that the rooms of a stately home would have been bigger, believe me candles generate more than enough heat to keep even the chilliest person warm.
We kicked off with Joe's choice of story - a recording read by Richard Pascoe of "The Upper Berth" by F Marion Crawford - beautifully read, but the author was obviously paid by the word and had spun a very slight tale out to an interminable 33 minutes of ponderous Victorian prose! I then read one of my own short stories "Lost in the Mists of Time", Andy Emmerson read a 'true' story which he had found on the internet about a haunted road near where he lived as a child, and then we exchanged a variety of 'true' tales of ghosts encountered in our homes and by our friends and relatives. We remain somewhat sceptical whatever the evidence.
One nice thing which did come out of the evening was, that having decided to dress appropriately, I had found a black velvet dress which I had almost forgotten I owned (it is about 25 years old): it claims to be a size 12 and it fits! It also looks remarkably good now I have taken the ruching elastic out of the wrists - these uncomfortable sleeves which tended to ride up and cut into my fore-arms were I recall the reason I wore it so seldom when it was new.
