Our Saturday Independence Day loomed large-we'd spent over £250 on food alone (and had a bust-up as I'd bought an entire pig's worth of spare ribs. Actually make that two pigs. I felt many spare ribs were the way to go, he felt two enormous beef joints were the way to go, and the showdown would have to take place over the grill that night.) It took us ages to set up in the garden-we hastily made a table and then laid out tablecloths draped with American flags, and I had various antique enamel pitchers and French juice jugs drifting around filled with flowers from our garden. We'd made nearly all of the food beforehand, and so Saturday was spent getting the house ready and trying to keep cool-the sun was hot, there were no clouds, and the temperature was fucking blistering (and in a land of no air conditioning, we felt it even more so).

Here's the garden in its patriotic glory (along with our homemade table and a number of science stools that we grabbed from a pile of to-be-kindling):

If the lawn is looking a bit dry, it's because it is. England is hosting a massive drought just now and no one is allowed to water their lawns. Our entire front garden is now brown and the lush back garden is getting hit pretty hard, too. It's not fun.

And all of Gorby's toys are scattered all over the place, as per usual.

The candles on the table are things I put together from the Sale bin at Habitat, which I think worked out ok. The green enamel pitcher on the table is about 100 years old, and all the flowers in it are from our garden. I really suck at flower arranging but those kinds of flowers? They arrange themselves.

All patriotic paraphernalia got pressed into service, like this bear that someone gave me many years ago.

Even the table with the dishes was dressed up.

I was given this table about 12 years ago. It's travelled to Europe with me as I love it dearly. It also got put into service, armed with an antique yellow French milk pitcher that we filled with the silverware.

People slowly started trickling in to watch the game on our big fuck-off TV (which is about to be relegated to the kitchen as we are planning on buying a 42 inch HD plasma for the living room. We'd go LCD but they don't make them big enough just yet. Like alcohol, we take our TVs very seriously.) More people arrived. The stock of chips and dips were distributed. The keg was tapped and the wine was uncorked. Soon our entire living room was filled with people as we sadly watched England lose in the penalty shoot out.

Then even more people arrived. We all went outside, the grill was fired up, and the party really started (the flowing alcohol helped ease the post-World Cup loss blues.) Gorby was the darling of the evening, going from hand to hand as everyone remarked what a calm and sweet dog he was. Kids settled into the lounge watching Jurassic Park with the surround sound on full blast (say what you like about the movie being naff, but there's nothing cooler than listening to the Tyrannosaurus' footsteps vibrating in the cup of water in surround sound.) The adults pooled around in the back garden, and I am enormously pleased that everyone talked to everyone. We had about 30 people come over for the festivities, all from different areas in our lives, and everyone seemed to get on.

Everyone relaxed.

Dinner was a massive affair-baked beans, potato salad, a pasta-garden salad, corn on the cob, spare ribs, beef joint, sausages, hamburgers and drinks to spare. People kept coming for food in waves. Angus kept grilling and I kept running around refilling pitchers of Pimms (a fabulous English mixer which I have become a devotee to) and refilling the food on the table. When, at the end, Angus and I finally got the chance to grab something small to eat for ourselves (I had a tofu sausage and he had a beef and horseradish-filled baguette) the food had almost disappeared. We had just a few ribs, a couple of slabs of beef, a few scoops of potato salad and baked beans each. The corn, garden salad, and all other dead animal products were gone.

We fired up the candles placed all over the garden and kept going. Out came the fabulous fudgy brownies Angus had made. I had caved and made a homemade yellow cake with white frosting and strawberries and blueberries in the form of an American flag on top. An ice-filled bowl of watermelons was on standby. Every single piece of cake and brownie disappeared, but the guests? Not fans of watermelon (a sad, sad thing indeed. Who doesn't like watermelon? And why?).

It was about eleven once the dessert course concluded and so it was time to light off some fireworks. Massive rockets, sizzling screamers, and roman candles galore all marked the sky above our countryside. We'd put Gorby in his kennel in the locked-up kitchen with the radio on loud, but the truth is he wasn't bothered anyway. We let him out halfway through and he couldn't have cared less about the fireworks (God I love this dog).

Some guests left after the display of us literally burning our money up, but happily the majority stayed. In the end, we had 16 people throughout our house and in tents in our front garden (and isn't that the sign of a good party? Tent City being erected on your lawn?)

We all went to bed around 2 (Angus and I were completely sober as we'd been running around too much to get drinks in-next year I will get the beer ready via IV, then we can be sure to clog our veins with booze) and were awakened around 7 when one of the 4 year-olds decided it was time for everyone to get up and so got voluble (and Jesus H. Christ it put Angus' and my teeth on edge.) The breakfast production started and we doled out cup after cup of coffee to hungover guests. I fired up the waffle iron and became a one-woman waffle making menace. Angus made scrambled eggs and we had rashers of bacon (our barbecue has contributed to the decimation of many pigs, and for that, I am sorry. But they all were organic happy pigs, that much we made sure of. Sorry, Wilbur! I love you, man!)

People said their good-byes around lunchtime with smiles of what a great time they'd had. I was glad about that-to me the 4th is about family and friends, good food and good company. I believe this is how the founding fathers would have wanted it to be-it's about having a life that we can relax in and love. Flag-waving and hardcore patriotic gestures are not what means the most to me, it's not what embodies the 4th of July in my book. Sure, be happy to be American, be proud to remember the day that a little fledgling country took a stand. But for me, the day is about being happy, about having the chance to relax and look up at exploding stars. It was Jefferson who said: I am a warrior so that my son can be a merchant, so that his son can be a poet.

They fought the battle for us.

We get to love our lives for it, and one day a year, raise a glass in gratitude.

After everyone left Angus and I finished the cleaning up. We showered, then I napped in the hammock. I was later joined for some action in said hammock, and then we got drunk on nice white wine before collapsing in an exhausted heap by 9:00 at night.

It was, overall, one of the best Independence Day celebrations ever.

-H.

PS-I am thinking of trying to move my domain off of mu.nu and Angus and I will run it ourselves. Anyone have any experience doing this? Any tips gratefully received. I own two domain names, everydaystranger.net and a new one, which is here. I know I need to buy server space, etc, and I am not interested in using blogger, typepad, or anything else. I want final say over my own site, and I don't really want to be associated with things I don't support.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 08:00 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 1434 words, total size 9 kb.

1 Hi H, *delurks* I've moved domains on and off MuNu more times than I care to remember. Feel free to smack up the ole inbox if you need a hand. Rob

Posted by: RobRob at July 05, 2006 11:08 AM (8zoV4)

2 Party sounds fab, Helen! Glad you had such a good time!

Posted by: sarajane at July 05, 2006 01:29 PM (t5Xsa)

3 The party sounds awesome! I hope that when I finally make the move to that side of the pond I'll get an invite. I'm down with people that plan for camping after a party. Glad it was a success!

Posted by: amy t. at July 05, 2006 02:43 PM (zPssd)

4 My two cents: I host at www.fuitadnet.com, a nice bunch of folks who do what they do because they like doing it. Very reasonable rates, and if you need help *now* you can hop on IRC and get a tech in a chatroom. If you're looking for a change of pace, I can't recommend an install of Wordpress enough. Highly customizable, lots of interesting plugins to make it your own, lots of fun. If I can be of any assistance, please feel free to send me a note. Glad you had a good 4th. Got to spend the dark part of mine on a friend's roof, watching about 12 fireworks shows at once. Yay for high elevations. Luck, Michael

Posted by: Michael at July 05, 2006 03:24 PM (gDkSs)

5 Can you discuss the grill Angus used. is it gas , charcoal? is it a big big thing, etc..

Posted by: iowaslovak at July 05, 2006 09:11 PM (vBa9j)

6 Glad you had such a nice 4th! Definitely, Wordpress all the way.

Posted by: Hannah at July 06, 2006 12:56 PM (THPgF)

7 There are some hosts out there that have stuff like Wordpress already instealled on the sever when you become their customer. Mine, back when I had paid hosting, did not and even I was able to get both MT and Wordpress up and running. The instructions are pretty straightforward and there are some great support boards too. I preferred Wordpress over MT ... but I've heard (and seen) some pretty coold things with Expression Engine - but it's not free (I don't think) and I'm flippin' cheap. Looks like you had an awesome 4th!! We had a very great one here too - loads of time spent at the beach .... multiple parades ... and a front row seat to some awesome fireworks.

Posted by: Michele at July 07, 2006 03:27 AM (5VGFA)

Hide Comments | Add Comment