It's only dinner, but I like it!

Something that used to happen almost every night in the Milne household has now become a rare and special event; all five of us sitting round a dinner table all at the same time and all in the same place. Last night, to my delight, we had one of those rare and special events.

Gemma was home from Uni for a flying visit and, fairly unusually, nobody had anything on so we treated ourselves to a meal out. We've all had a lot going on recently and it was just one of those 'good to have a proper catch-up' kind of deals. And very nice it was too!

We hardly ever manage a "just the five of us" meal out together very often nowadays, but when we do it mostly turns out - reasssuringly - the same. It goes along the lines of: we arrive, we chat, we order drinks, we chat, we drink (we always find something to raise our glasses and say 'Cheers!' to), we order food, we chat, we laugh, we get angry, we eat, we embarrass each other, we eat, we chat, we argue (we always find something to argue about), we don't speak, we make-up, we chat, we laugh, we eat, we drink, we chat, we laugh, we ask for the bill (we always do that thing of pretending we're writing on a notepad), we check the bill (we almost always find a mistake, but never complain when we've been undercharged), we leave.

Of course, things don't necessarily always happen in that order, and sometimes there's more arguing than laughing, or drinking than eating (hic!). But one thing's always the same - the meal always ends with me thanking my lucky stars for the lovely, lively, loving bunch that make up the Milne crew.