Saturday 26th August - The "Secret" Party

Imagine the pleasure of being invited to the 85th birthday party of one of your favourite aunts - someone you have loved and respected for so many years - a party to which all of her cherished friends and relatives have been invited; a party which is sure to have endless supplies of carefully prepared food and copious amounts to drink. Truly an event to remember....just imagine.

Now imagine NOT being invited to the above. The feelings of rejection, lack of worth, self esteem etc. Well, believe me such feelings can hurt and I should know.

In order to protect my Aunt's identity I shall simply refer to her as Aunty Dot, and all photos of her will be digitally altered so that she is not recognised in the street for fear of her suffering verbal abuse when people hear of the way in which she treated me (For whilst I was not invited to the "secret" party, I am not a vindictive person).

Having learned of the planned party and its location I decided to drive the short distance to the venue (350 miles) and arrive ahead of the planned start time to catch Aunty Dot and her cohorts (who I shall refer to as M & D) off guard.

They had gone to great lengths to put me off the scent; Aunty Dot had moved to another house, and M & D's car had been hidden close to another similar looking property so that I wouldn't see it on my first visit. However, I soon saw through this pretence, and eventually knocked on the door, which was eventually opened by D.

On giving him the secret password "bacon sandwich?", he let me in, even though their surprise at my arrival was clearly evident.

(But it didn't end there. In order to disorientate me further, Aunty Dot had decorated this new house with exactly the same furniture and colour scheme as my own in Sussex.)

By early afternoon they "seemed" resigned to let me stay, albeit still trying to make sure that I headed home before the real food arrived.

I had so many questions to ask, such as "Why?", "Why?" and also "Why?", but none of them were answered satisfactorily. Aunty Dot even said that this was to be her last birthday in a less than subtle attempt to persuade me not to come to next year's party either.

"Invited" guests arrived throughout the afternoon, all of them "appeared" very pleasant indeed, but seemed to find my presence somewhat strange. In fact they seemed to find me (myself, I) somewhat strange as well, how wrong they all are!

Then the cake arrived - yet another trick - I was told at this point that it wasn't actually Aunty Dot's 85th birthday party, but in fact Mavis's (who I didn't know) Silver Wedding Anniversary party, and that was why I hadn't been invited!

When I saw the cake, for the first time I began to doubt whether I had actually been right about the whole event. The cake did have the number "25" on the top of it!

Throughout the afternoon I believe that there were various attempts to poison me. I was given plates of food - nobody else seemed to be eating - including some shortbread that actually tasted of cheese! Very suspicious!

Anyway, by 5pm I started to feel strangely tired and decided that the safest thing that I could do was to escape and drive the short distance home (350 miles) and get some sleep.

Next year they will have to come up with a more cunning plan if they want to stop me from attending. Bring it on!!!!