(A short, no-image-needed post.)

I’m a nervous person. Specifically I am nervous when I have to go to an event which includes a group of people. More than 10 and less than 100, shall we say. So when one of the women I walk with every week, invited us all to her 70th birthday party, I said yes, but my heart say OMG no way! It went on; are you mad? there will people you don’t know! My heart likes to really pile it on. But as husbands were also invited I thought, what the hey, it might even be fun. And you know, it was.

G’s husband had planned it all; lunch followed by afternoon tea, wine and champagne, in their local village hall. He invited everyone G knew, WI, walking groups, friends. They’d lived in that area for a very long time, so they knew a lot of people. Around 60 people turned up for a fantastic buffet lunch of salad, quiches, pasta and rice salads, all sorts. Followed by several kinds of cheesecake, roulade and fruit platters. All of it was baked by G’s friends. Afternoon tea was three kinds of sandwiches and three-tier cake stands, of butterfly cacks, chocolate cakes, and Welsh cakes with jam and cream. We ate until we couldn’t eat any more! Yes, there were a lot of people there I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter quite as much as I had dreaded.

Which just goes to show you, it’s silly to get so worked up and afraid before an event. It’s rarely as dreadful as one thinks it will be.