Tuesday 17 June 2014

(Not such a) very English barbq?!

Well that was dramatic!

Yesterday evening we held a little party to show off the house and say thank you to those who have played important roles in getting us to this point.  My parents and Mr RR's parents were there, the architect and engineer (lovely married couple who we now consider our friends), Italian friends we have known for 5 years now who hosted me, translated for me, stood up for me in meetings with the builder and so much more, plus the most wonderfully smiley elderly couple I have ever met who live just across from us and have been unfailingly friendly and welcoming whenever we see them.  It was quite a mix but Monopoli is a small town and most of the Italians seemed to know each other or have friends in common.

Anyway, I had been cooking on and off for 2 days (for the record, mum and I had made a quiche, onion and blue cheese tarts, coronation chicken, curried prawn and melon salad, burgers, thai rice salad, garlic bread, caramelised onions, plus banoffee pie, white chocolate and ginger cheesecake, and cupcakes in lemon and chocolate!  Excessive maybe but I wanted to show there was a whole world of food out there that didn't revolve around pasta, tomatoes and olive oil!).  I'd been keeping an eye on the weather forecast, as there had been showers on and off for a few days, but as of Sunday afternoon it was still 0% chance of rain after 12 noon on Monday (yesterday), so nothing to worry about, right?!

Wrong!

As we welcomed in our last guests, the rain started coming down, heavier than I've ever seen it here before.  A river of water started pouring under the external door to the balcony into Mr RR's office - first lesson learned: closed doors with open shutters won't always stop the rain!  Towels hastily thrown down, I went to the kitchen where my mum suggested that I didn't look outside at the roof terrace!  The swing seat and parasol, put up just 3 days before and so admired, had been caught by the wind in the first minute of torrential rain and broken!  The parasol was only stopped from going over the side of our 4-storey building by catching on the TV aerial support and my dad's valiant efforts to keep it on the ground (like any umbrella in a storm but 10 times the size!!) - second lesson learned: shut the parasol before the storm comes rather than thinking you'll have time when/if it starts!  All that plus the doors to the terrace had stayed open while Mr RR and our dads tried to get the situation under control so there was water everywhere on the top floor - third lesson learned: buy a mop!

So, 3 day old fancy terrace furniture destroyed, every towel in the house on the floor soaking up rainwater, nowhere to sit and eat except on the rain-soaked terrace and I have a house full of hungry guests!  Che dramma!  (What drama!)

On the plus side, we seem to choose our friends well and everyone made the best of it, congregating in the kitchen, the women in their 70's perched on the stairs, all appreciating my joke that it couldn't be an English barbq without rain and chatting away while I came up with a plan B (serve food in the kitchen then head back up to the terrace to eat as the heat dries everything pretty quickly) and it all worked out in the end.  One guest even emailed me today and said nonostante il brutto tempo, ieri sera รจ stata proprio una magnifica serata (despite the weather, yesterday was just a wonderful evening).  Aw!

We heard later from a friend who had been driving towards the area in the storm that it looked like a twister!  What on earth?!  Well, it's always good to have stories and it's certainly the first party I've attended, let alone hosted, with a tornado thrown in, so a pretty memorable house-warming for all!

P.S. Also, how fortunate are we?  Showing just what incredible friends they are, we received these absolutely spot-on gifts:

Beautiful white fruit bowl for our predominantly white
(and lacking a fruit bowl!) home
Beautiful white lantern for our predominately white
(and always loving more candles!) home
Incredible you-can't-call-that-a-plant-it's-a-tree
from our lovely neighbours which is literally as tall as me
but which they insist is just a small token and a typical house-warming gift!

2 comments:

  1. Oh my. Well at least it was memorable!

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  2. Thanks Nicky, it certainly was! You ever had a tornado as a party guest in your neck of the woods?

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