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Jayne Dawson: Keep smiling through
WE love a bit of adversity, don't we? The key being in the quantity, naturally, because nobody wants loads.
But a bit of adversity bonds us more completely than anything, other than a wholehearted group critique of the England football team.
And the older we are the more we can show up the youngsters by coping with that bit of adversity with great aplomb.
At the weekend we all turned up at the restaurant to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday, only to discover there was no electricity.
Young restaurant staff, many of them clutching a lit candle to their bosom despite the shimmering daylight beyond the front door, gathered around us in an anxious swarm to explain the many disadvantages of attempting a celebratory lunch at a venue bereft of a vital source of energy.
The drinks wouldn't be cold, they said. And the food wouldn't be hot. The room, on the other hand, would be very, very hot indeed, what with the candles and the lack of air-conditioning. And had they mentioned everything was off the menu, bar lettuce?
All faces turned to my mother-in-law who smoothly continued to divest herself of her best summer jacket. Would we be staying? A flicker of astonishment disturbed her serene features for a split second. Of course we would be staying. Ploughman's lunch 17 times, please.
And that was that.
There was no great sense of surprise. After all, here was the woman who, when faced with a post-war winter without a decent coat, ran one up out of a blanket. I haven't ever actually been told that she made her children clothes out of a pair of curtains, la Sound of Music, but it wouldn't surprise me to learn that she had – except that she would probably consider that a waste of a good curtain when everyone knows you can easily fashion a pair of school trousers out of potato peelings.
And here also was the woman who remembers friends turning up to stay in the middle of the night, and those friends were travelling light, because their house and their belongings were all, at that moment, smouldering under a German bomb.
A meal that was a little heavy on the lettuce was not going to trouble her.
Increasingly I take my lead from her. I have decided that age does bring wisdom and in any crisis now like to ask myself what would Vera Lynn have done.
Back at the restaurant, we followed her stoic lead, dropped all plans to descend on a fish and chip shop instead, and began to amuse ourselves by ordering a fantasy menu of what we would have had, as we waited for our lettuce. Then we drank adversity drinks "I'll have a spritzer then, only instead of cold, fizzing, refreshing soda I'll take my wine mixed with tepid water, thank you very much."
Eventually the young staff relaxed enough to realise this was a very British version of a celebratory disaster, i.e. we were all very much enjoying it.
"There's a bottle of beer, anybody want it? You might as well," said the waitress entering the room proudly holding aloft her trophy.
Plus the ploughman's were really rather nice.
Crisis
News was brought to us at intervals about how the electricity crisis was progressing and what parts of the building were affected. A rescuer was on their way, we were told.
Every so often the lights would spark into life, giving us cause to cheer, only to die again, giving us cause to carry on enjoying the crisis.
Outside, there was a wedding party and these people were housed in a marquee. We wondered how their electricity-free nuptials were shaping up: wouldn't it be a day to remember, weren't they plucky to keep on beaming through the meltdown – and it would be a meltdown in a tent on the hottest day of the year without any cooling electrically-generated breeze, wouldn't it?
Just as we were about to offer emergency aid (does the bride need more make-up, because what she was originally wearing must have slid right off her face by now) we were told that the wedding marquee in fact had its own generator, so only we were eating lettuce and drinking warm water.
To be honest, I felt more disappointed for them, than for us. What a story it would have made. A little bit of me wanted to go pull the plug on them too, just to make it more of a fun, bonding afternoon for all concerned.
Meanwhile back at our fabulous do, in lieu of hot puddings we produced our own cake – because which well-prepared Briton doesn't have a birthday cake in the boot of their car just in case – romped through a quick chorus of happy birthday, and all raised a glass of something tepid to mother-in-law. She continued to look serene.
EP 14/7/10
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Weather for Leeds
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
