IN-LAWS
THE IDEAL IS to marry an orphan. However hard you try, you’ll probably have some trouble with your in-laws. Mine have always been angelic to me but as my mother-in-law pointed out to me in a moment of candour, nobody is ever good enough to marry one’s children.
Be kind to your in-laws. Remember that many parents are so involved with their children that it’s an act of infidelity almost tantamount to divorce when they suddenly meet someone and marry them. For years a mother has considered herself her daughter’s or her son’s best friend, and suddenly she isn’t. She sees them confiding in someone else, and as they draw further and further away from her, she becomes more and more unpleasant by trying to hang on to them.
Tact is essential. Be particularly nice to your husband/ wife when in-laws are around, but don’t neck and don’t exclude them with private jokes. From the wife a bit of sucking up doesn’t come amiss. Ask your mother-in- law’s advice about cooking and washing, say your husband is always raving about her apple pie, how does she make it?
One thing that particularly upsets mothers-in-law is heavy eye make-up and long untidy hair, so if you want to take the business of getting on with her seriously, tie your hair back and soft pedal the make-up when you see her.
The husband’s best tack is to flirt with his mother-in-law, even if she’s an old boot. Few women can resist flattery.
Wives can flirt with their fathers-in-law, but don’t overdo it, or you’ll have your mother-in-law branding you a fast piece.
However much you dislike having your in-laws to stay, be philosophical about it: at least it will make you clean the place up. My mother-in-law once slept peacefully and unknowingly on a pillow-case full of wet washing. Don’t give them too lush food or they’ll think you’re being extravagant. Herrings and cider will impress them far more than lobster and caviar. And hide those battalions of empties before they arrive.
My husband always takes his parents on a tour of the house, pointing out things that need repairing in anticipation of a fat cheque.
YOUR OWN PARENTS
However fond you are of your own parents, remember that when a man marries ‘he shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife’.
Loyalty to your husband or wife must always come first. Don’t chatter to your mother too long or too often on the telephone, it will irritate your husband and possibly make him jealous.
If you have a row with your husband or wife, and pack your bags, go to a discreet friend, never, never go home to your parents. You will say a lot of adverse things about your partner in the heat of the moment which you will forget afterwards, but your parents will remember them and it will be extremely difficult afterwards for your parents and partner to pick up the threads again.
FRIENDS
A friend married is a friend lost, goes the proverb, and certainly one of the sad facts of marriage is that it’s almost impossible to keep up with friends one’s other half doesn’t like. You can relegate them to lunch dates and evenings when your partner is out, but invariably they get the message and sweep off in low-gear dudgeon.
Much of the first year of marriage is spent weeding out the sheep from the goats. Both parties should try not to be jealous of the other half’s close friends. My husband certainly made short work of any friends he considered a) boring, b) unstable influences.
If you find your husband’s friends a bore, establish a reputation for delicacy early on in the marriage, then when they lurch in drunkenly from the pub, you can plead exhaustion and disappear upstairs to read a book.
DROPPERS-IN
Ought to be abolished. People should telephone first and see if you want to see them. No one will bother you the first month or so. They used to apologise to us for telephoning after seven o’clock, assuming we’d be in bed. After that they’ll descend in droves, looking curiously for signs of strain in your faces, avid to see what kind of mess you’ve made of your flat.
One method of getting rid of them is to dispatch your husband to the bedroom, rip off all your clothes, ruffle your hair, and, clad only in a face towel, answer the door brandishing the
Entertaining notions
ENTERTAINING
ALWAYS CHECK WITH your partner before you issue or accept an invitation, or you’ll get ghastly instances of double dating.
Time and again recently, we’ve been making tracks for bed when the telephone goes, and an irate voice says, ‘Aren’t you coming, we’re all waiting to go in to dinner.’ Or we’ll be just leaving the house to go out, when a rosy- cheeked couple arrive on the doorstep having driven fifty miles up from the country for dinner.
Keep a book by the telephone and write everything down.
DINNER PARTIES
Unless you’re a Cordon Bleu cook, and totally unflappable, your first dinner parties are bound to be packed with incident. Overcooked meat, undercooked potato salad, souffles that don’t rise, guests that don’t rise to the occasion.
If you’re a beginner, cook as much as possible the day before. Cod’s roe pate, liver pate, soup, casseroles and most puddings can all be made beforehand. Then all you have to do the following day is to make the toast and mix a salad dressing.
If possible get the table ready the night before as well.
Polishing glasses, ironing napkins, getting out plates and coffee cups all take longer than one would imagine. Get plenty of cheese, in case you haven’t given people enough — I once fell up the stairs with the pudding and eight plates, and there was no cheese in the house.
Don’t spend hours away from your guests. Nothing is less calculated to put them at their ease than a hostess who turns up red in the face after three-quarters of an hour, grabs a quick drink and disappears again.
One couple we went to dinner with both disappeared for an hour to peel grapes for the Sole Veronique, and the whole meal was served to an accompaniment of piped cream.
Be careful who you ask with whom: the day our vicar’s wife came to dinner we invited a young man who regaled us for half the evening with details of the mating habits of the rhinoceros.
Don’t become a slave to social ping-pong. Entertaining is wildly expensive and just because you had caviar and three kinds of wine at the Thrust-Pointers, don’t feel you have to give them oysters and liqueurs when they come back to you.
If you’re broke, warn people beforehand that it will only be spaghetti and Spanish Burgundy, then they can either refuse, bring a bottle or have a number of stiff drinks beforehand.
If you’re worried about the food, drink for at least an hour and half before you eat, and they’ll be so tight they won’t know what they’re eating.
Equally, if you’re supremely confident about your food, don’t let them drink too much.
Don’t play loud background music before dinner, it kills conversation. People can go to a concert if they want that sort of thing.
Never, never show slides.
IF THEY WON’T GO
