HOW TO THROW A PARTY

This week I attended a party. My neighbour, Annie, had just turned 60 and she was entertaining the neighbours and a few friends. We were 10 altogether - a happy and intimate number for a party - large enough to be interesting but small enough for everybody to feel part of single group. The invitation said come at 6.30 for canapés, cake and champagne. So we did.

Different people have their own party ‘style.’ For my father, whose parties I observed fascinated from the shrubberies of childhood, the important thing was to create an atmosphere.

On one occasion he placed white candles in little bowls of water all over the back lawn. They flickered as the sun went down transforming the whole garden into a giant birthday cake for Jacqueline, then a current French water skiing champion, who was an improbable guest.

What the elegant Jacqueline, who must have been learning English, thought of this I have no idea. Sitting there on the fringes, sipping my one dilute glass from the great fruit-laden punch bowl, listening to the guests, one of whom hailed from the South American Pampas, it was all quite impossibly romantic. The image of that summer evening has remained with me ever since.

Perhaps from this came my love of fire, particularly outdoors. A torch burning in the night, reflected in the water of lake or river, still excites a feeling of romance - of a new, free and heightened world out their in the blackness beyond the flames, in which anything might be possible. Even a bonfire in the cold November darkness triggers much the same mystery and magic; spells and cauldrons and whizz-bangs.

Still, one of the difficulties with parties is knowing properly not how to start them but how to end them without the conclusion being an anti-climax. How to begin a party is relatively easy; but how to end it happily when palates are jaded, bellies full and lids perhaps beginning to droop is not.

I know this is the case with my own parties around the dinner table. Lack of party confidence, I suppose, propels us towards big meals: nibbles, starters, mains, dessert, cheese and coffee, with various wines as appropriate.

The first hour when people are sitting in the sun, munching on olives and pistachios, enjoying a chilled beer or a glass of rosé are wonderful. But the mood and the conversation become heavier with the calories and ever larger amounts of alcohol are required to keep afloat. Although guests tend to be effusive in their thanks, too often I wonder if they are not really retiring hurt.

One of our frequent guests, who was also present at Annie’s party is Linda, who, in some past life, must have been a grand society hostess. By some magical osmotic process people from all walks of life and of all ages just arrive at her house in the evening where there is often some impromptu party going on.

She has the curious knack of creating an ambiance from no more than a twinkle of an eye and which makes very different people reach out to each other like long lost friends. It would be impossible to imagine a group of men huddled to talk about sport and another group of women gossiping in her house.

How this happens I do not know for apart from a few olives and crisps and of course wine - Linda chooses her wines carefully and well - she never prepares for these events in any way. Yet they are all superb.

But of all the party givers I know, I think that my neighbour Annie has to be the best. It helps that she is French and cooks superbly. But she is also an attentive hostess. She also makes a point of never drinking anything but champagne. As a result on her sixtieth birthday she looked not at day over 40 and as slim and svelte as she was long ago.

She serves food - even at a dinner party - only a little at a time. So that you really think that that plate of canapés was both the first and the last. And then just when you are convinced the party must be over another plate appears, freshly cooked and spiced. More champagne appears, another ice bucket.

Time passes seamlessly as the plates of spiced chicken, olives, delicate prawns, smoked salmon, are brought down the garden to where we are sitting by the summer rhubarb and wisteria. The champagne flows and although we have arrived at 6.30 we find that it is 11.30 and quite dark before we are saying our good byes to the company. Somehow, I calculate, I must have drunk the equivalent of a whole bottle of champagne, yet I feel neither more than pleasantly merry nor bloated with food.

For five hours we have teased each other, made jokes, created fantasies, set the world to rights, heard travellers’ tales, swopped books and recipes and stories of woe - but mostly rejoiced in our own eclectic company. It was, I have to admit, a very good party.