July 14, 2008. Western Head, N.S. Dinner Parties.

We have just had the most magnificent series of dinner parties here in The Liverpool area that we began to think we were in other town or in another era. All this week and weekend we have been wined and dined in the home of friends, and such wonderful dinners there were. It makes our dinners at our house look sick!! At one meal we were served a salad of arugula with strips of mango, lime dressing dribbled over the top. It was a good mis of sweet and bitter and tart. The main course was scallops, grilled very lightly, So delicious, tender, sweet and juicy. Big Digby scallops of course. The next night we were a party of ten, served at the green house at the end of the bay right across from us. The three of them must have spent all day preparing the meal for us and it was wonderful. All the silver and crystal and chine was in use. We each had our name on a stone for our place cards. Very clever and very cute, as they live beside a cobble beach. The whole family put together the wonderful meal. Their daughter, who was a big part of the evening, is going to be a Senior in College in the Fall, so she got to use all the things she was taught by her parents and during a course about manners. We had great fun and wonderful food. One of the guests I had not met before, except when he played his bagpipes at the Mersey Band concert. His name was Ross, but I kept calling him Scott, for Scotland. He thought I could not remember his name, so every time I called him Scott, he corrected me. Of course, I kept calling him Scott. Finally, he realized that I was doing it on purpose, so he began to call me Alice. By the end of the evening, every one there had switched to calling us Scott and Alice. It was a very funny scene, and a memorable meal.

My friend Gill is very blunt. She is energetic, hard working, smart, kindly, loving, but blunt. Last night at a dinner party at a friends house, a guest was talking about her difficult husband. This was during the cocktail hour sitting outside under the trees. We were a party of eight. The husband was not there, but we all know him. So the wife is carrying on with examples of how her husband is so difficult. Finally, Gill leans forward, and in a quiet but clear voice asks if there was anything about this husband that the wife used to like. For a moment there was stunned silence, then I roared with laughter, as did the wife. But she continued to complain about him all night.

Finally our friends the Elys are here. So now we are all in our places with sunshining faces. Tomorrow we dine all together at Gills. Our good friends, together again.