A WEEKEND WITH FRIENDS

I have told variations of this story in other posts, but for several years now I have been going to the opera with a group of friends.  We met at a British shop I found myself working at, where I went for lunch one day and was offered a job.  I had the right accent I suppose. As most often happens when I get out of my comfort zone, I had to be talked into it. My sister was visiting at the time and I had taken her to lunch.  She told me I would be mad to say no, that if she could she would take the job.  So after listening to her off and on for a week, we went back for another lunch and when asked again, this time I said yes. I talked with the owner for twenty minutes or so, and by the end of it I agreed to start in a few days after my sister had gone home, with the proviso that this would be a trial run.  I ended up staying for several years and I met these ladies.  The shop eventually closed but our friendship has remained, and we all have a love for opera.  

We saw La Traviata last Saturday. We go to our local theater and watch a live televised performance from the New York Metropolitan Opera House.  Beautiful!  However, I fell asleep during the first act. The chairs are like a lazy-boy, where the head rest goes down and the foot rest comes up.  Listening to the music and in the darkened theater, already feeling very sleepy from the night before, I have occasionally been lulled into a comfortable snooze.  I am not alone as at one time or another we occasionally hear a few snores from our fellow opera lovers out in the darkness.  Those lazy-boys you know?

We came back home and my friends stayed the night.  We have dinner, a couple of glasses of wine, and chat until one to two o'clock in the morning, always looking at the clock in surprise and invariably saying where did the time go?  (Gregg leaves us hours earlier to go watch a game upstairs).  This has been a pattern for a whole lot of years, once a month during opera season, sometimes twice, and in the summer months we go do other things.

As it isn't long before the holidays, one of my friends, the lady in the red sweater brought a Christmas Pudding and set it alight.  It was a fine ending to a very nice meal (the main course being cooked by Gregg after we got home from the opera).

Our friend was told by her culinary friend to use Vodka to set the pudding alight, because it gives a more vibrant flame.  Holly leaves and berries from her garden to go on top, and a delicious rum butter to serve with it.  It was all delicious and a very pretty show.

So, there you go, that was our weekend.  A good time with friends is always a gift isn't it?

Thanks for stopping by.