A Moment With Great Gatsby

My husband Kevin travels a lot for work and last week he was in London. Due to my new regime of not drinking during the week (unless "going out" or "emergency") I was a bit wobbly by Saturday. My friend Monica rescued me from my hausfrauserie with an invitation to a pizza party she'd won in a school auction.

Selfie, old top you've seen it before

My friend Monica and me

The Oakland house

Looking over to the pizza oven area

The owners are into punk rock and Chinoiserie 

Their vege garden

The pizzas were made in a outdoor oven at a lovely Oakland home, a 1920's Tudor remodeled five years ago using reclaimed 100-year old wood and employing a number of local artisans as well as others who flew in Italy.

For a moment, sipping Prosecco on the lawn lit brightly by the sun even at 7pm, I could imagine myself in a Great Gatsby  scene chatting to my friends Muffy, Cricket and Charmeloy:  "Darlings, darlings do come to The Island next weekend, it'll be desperately dull without you!" Frocks with a dropped waist and a mid-calf length do nothing for me, but I notice in the movie they've hiked the hemlines to above the knee. 

Kevin arrived home yesterday afternoon to cries of relief all around and turns out he'd been receiving texts all week from my disgruntled tenants.
"Mum's so unfair"
"Mum's so mean."
"Your wife is seriously crazy." When he's really mad, one of the kids refers to me as your wife. And if you're wondering what the  word "seriously" adds to the "crazy" (I asked in the past and was met with a pitying stare) it elevates it to a technical term that can't be disputed.

Something about that last paragraph is similar to last weekend's.  Aiming for Great Gatsby and getting Groundhog Day...

I woke up this morning with a crick in my neck from reading Rules of Civility on the sunlounger at the pool yesterday. A chaise lounge injury...wee bit Great Gatsby, n'est pas?