So I want to get to this garden party before it gets dark. It is important to hover amongst the flowers in an artistic manner as the sun goes down and not arrive in blackness when you might as well be in a car park in Peckham sipping peanut butter beer and pretending to relish the irony of ’70s concrete walls that looks like the setting for a suicide. If you arrive in the dark everyone will have moved inside and you will just have to rely on the smokers, the resilient ones, hard edged and speaking in tongues, whereby once this was a primordial act, now they are rebels in dug out shelters, taking arms against the mundane militia, the fun ones seeking out fun, and who you will cling to when you’re all bribed to leave at 4am.
 

But it’s a bit bloody nippy, isn’t it? And we’re all regretting not bringing a pashmina but no one will admit that because they are only meant for 50 year old women at weddings who have spent the last eighteen months tracking down the exact shade of violet to go with their violet ensemble. Or violent, depending on your point of view. But no, far better to have a snotty nose for the rest of the week and have bubbles coming out of your nose in the finance meeting than resort to swaddling up. I mean, you wouldn’t be seen dead with a soft bit of cloth swung over your shoulders at crazy Luke’s BBQ where leather bunbags have made a re-appearance, in an ironic way of course, and you’re secretly praying for the day when pashminas become ironic so you can be warm and cosy and your nipples won’t be picking up Jazz FM. 

 You’re also concerned that at some point after that fourth glass of Pinot Grigio you will be ravenous and by being Very Late it might be a bit rock n roll but you might be out of sync with the Bringing Out Of Food and the only thing left to eat at 11pm will be vegan Samia’s banana salad. This will also be a serious concern of your boyfriend’s as he was “promised a BBQ” and to come between a man and his meat it to break a very serious moral contract. (I tried this once before when I made a shepherd’s pie without the shepherd. He scraped the lentils around the plate like tiddlywinks, searching for clumps of meat. There were none. He cried and I eat lentil pie for three weeks). 

So que July and we emerge from our dark, wintery tavern like the Thernardiers claiming malnutrition with crooked teeth, clocking and coercing anyone who has French doors to invite us round for processed meat in buns. And when someone does come up trumps we will jump around like Scots who have just snapped the Loch Ness monster.