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Authors: Anna Lyndsey
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would have to be hired in.”
“But that would be possible, wouldn’t it? We’d pay the extra cost.”
Grudgingly she admits that tables can be hired, and makes a grim note in her file.
“Then, we’d like some dancing.”
It turns out that the hotel has a disco with a small dance floor, and it can be set up at one end of the Garden Room.
“Actually, we were thinking more of a barn dance or ceilidh, with a caller, and people sort of dancing up and down the whole length of the room—”
“You can’t do that,” says Celia. “There would be health and safety issues with the carpet.”
Extensive and subtle cross-questioning is required in order to establish that there will be no health and safety issues if we can track down and hire a dance floor that will cover the whole of the carpet in the Garden Room. Pete thinks such things are of modular construction and can be made bigger or smaller quite easily, to fit.
This evidence of lateral thinking makes Celia fume. Her pointed toes splay savagely and the spots on her cheeks turn purple.
Naively, I had assumed that when you entered upon the business of having a wedding, service providers would lay themselves out to meet your requirements,safe in the knowledge that you had clearly decided to spend some money, and that they could therefore charge you hefty fees to make it worth their while. But Celia does not operate on this principle. She believes in the relentless disciplining of dreams.
In the car afterwards, Pete and I look at each other. “Blimey,” he says, leaning back against the headrest and taking a deep breath.
“What an extraordinary person,” I say faintly.
But we persist, because the hotel is so nice, and the lighting is suitable, and everyone else we have dealings with there is lovely and amenable. Celia continues to be erratically obstructive and unpleasant, and proves impossible to get hold of on the phone. When I speak to the bar manager and agree some minor point about the drinks, Celia is furious. “You should not have made any arrangement with her,” she shouts. “She has no supervisory authority.” When we turn up at the hotel for a pre-arranged meeting, we find that Celia has gone home.
“She’s not really into customer service, is she?” says Pete.
“I think she’s in the wrong job. She doesn’t seem to like weddings much.”
“She doesn’t seem to like people much.”
Gradually we get the details sorted out, but I have disturbing premonitions about the day itself, a recurring vision of Celia striding down the hotel steps, black hair flying, palm upraised, shouting, “No! You can’t come in.”
I N THE END , the wedding does not happen, but for this, Celia is not to blame. Other, stranger forces wreck our plans; to that extent my premonitions prove correct.
Games to Play in the Dark 2: Circle of Words
For this game you need a companion. But it is a relaxed, co-operative sort of game, with no winners or losers.
Think of a compound word or phrase—like Football, or Flower Power, or Hot Potato. Then, using the second part of the word or phrase, add something on to make a new word or phrase.
Take it in turns. Keep going until you link back to the original word.
Active encouragement is given to homonyms, chutzpah, surreal flights of fancy and appalling puns.
SAS
I have made an interesting discovery. I really like SAS thrillers.
Once I had a thrusting Liverpudlian boss, who strode about saying, “
Bravo Two Zero
—best management textbook ever written.” But that was the limit of my knowledge of the genre, until my book collector procured one from the local library.
I am hooked. What’s so great about SAS thrillers is the amount of useful, practical, how-to information they contain, about all sorts of things. I have learnt, for example, that SAS members always keep one eye shut when looking at a map at night. It takes forty minutes for the human eye to adjust fully to darkness; keeping one shut ensures you
“But that would be possible, wouldn’t it? We’d pay the extra cost.”
Grudgingly she admits that tables can be hired, and makes a grim note in her file.
“Then, we’d like some dancing.”
It turns out that the hotel has a disco with a small dance floor, and it can be set up at one end of the Garden Room.
“Actually, we were thinking more of a barn dance or ceilidh, with a caller, and people sort of dancing up and down the whole length of the room—”
“You can’t do that,” says Celia. “There would be health and safety issues with the carpet.”
Extensive and subtle cross-questioning is required in order to establish that there will be no health and safety issues if we can track down and hire a dance floor that will cover the whole of the carpet in the Garden Room. Pete thinks such things are of modular construction and can be made bigger or smaller quite easily, to fit.
This evidence of lateral thinking makes Celia fume. Her pointed toes splay savagely and the spots on her cheeks turn purple.
Naively, I had assumed that when you entered upon the business of having a wedding, service providers would lay themselves out to meet your requirements,safe in the knowledge that you had clearly decided to spend some money, and that they could therefore charge you hefty fees to make it worth their while. But Celia does not operate on this principle. She believes in the relentless disciplining of dreams.
In the car afterwards, Pete and I look at each other. “Blimey,” he says, leaning back against the headrest and taking a deep breath.
“What an extraordinary person,” I say faintly.
But we persist, because the hotel is so nice, and the lighting is suitable, and everyone else we have dealings with there is lovely and amenable. Celia continues to be erratically obstructive and unpleasant, and proves impossible to get hold of on the phone. When I speak to the bar manager and agree some minor point about the drinks, Celia is furious. “You should not have made any arrangement with her,” she shouts. “She has no supervisory authority.” When we turn up at the hotel for a pre-arranged meeting, we find that Celia has gone home.
“She’s not really into customer service, is she?” says Pete.
“I think she’s in the wrong job. She doesn’t seem to like weddings much.”
“She doesn’t seem to like people much.”
Gradually we get the details sorted out, but I have disturbing premonitions about the day itself, a recurring vision of Celia striding down the hotel steps, black hair flying, palm upraised, shouting, “No! You can’t come in.”
I N THE END , the wedding does not happen, but for this, Celia is not to blame. Other, stranger forces wreck our plans; to that extent my premonitions prove correct.
Games to Play in the Dark 2: Circle of Words
For this game you need a companion. But it is a relaxed, co-operative sort of game, with no winners or losers.
Think of a compound word or phrase—like Football, or Flower Power, or Hot Potato. Then, using the second part of the word or phrase, add something on to make a new word or phrase.
Take it in turns. Keep going until you link back to the original word.
Active encouragement is given to homonyms, chutzpah, surreal flights of fancy and appalling puns.
SAS
I have made an interesting discovery. I really like SAS thrillers.
Once I had a thrusting Liverpudlian boss, who strode about saying, “
Bravo Two Zero
—best management textbook ever written.” But that was the limit of my knowledge of the genre, until my book collector procured one from the local library.
I am hooked. What’s so great about SAS thrillers is the amount of useful, practical, how-to information they contain, about all sorts of things. I have learnt, for example, that SAS members always keep one eye shut when looking at a map at night. It takes forty minutes for the human eye to adjust fully to darkness; keeping one shut ensures you
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