Easter dinner and the waiting room

Ka had been in the kitchen since half past seven yesterday morning as we had invited both sets of Mums and Dads round for an Easter Sunday dinner. The wife was making a homemade soup to accompany her roast and her cheesecake which, as a first attempt, turned out great using a recipe from the BBC Good Food website (the joys if the internet!). I slept in on Sunday morning due to Singstar neighbour upstairs arriving home late on the Saturday night/Sunday morning with a bunch of mates and waking me up so I slept as Ka set to work. She would probably have been quite happy at me sleeping on as I wouldn't have been allowed access to the kitchen anyway. When it comes to having folk for dinner I'm very rarely allowed any kind of contribution even though there's very little wrong with my cooking (or so I reckon!). This is all down to Ka's stubborn determination to get things done herself. No matter what the obstacles. She had been bent over in pain for the previous two days,thanks to some kind of stomach infection, which was promptly sorted on Saturday with an appointment at the hospital and a perscription for some horse tranqilizer sized capsules.
Accomapnying Ka to the hospital I sat in the small waiting room, in a chair positioned under the television, listening to the dreadful american Tomb Raider style drama that was unfolding above us. Ka and myself sat facing a poor bloke in a hospital overall grimacing in pain and shivering in a wheelchair. Another small, chatty family unit sat opposite us and as we sat waiting I tried to figure out which one of them was the ill patient with the emergency appointment. They all looked fine to me, so I amused myself for a good ten minutes trying to deduce which one was the faker. It turned out to be the elder lady of the group who looked as if she was done up for a night out and didn't seem to be in any pain whatsoever. As they left the Doctor's office I even overheard them discussing where to head for a lunchtime coffee as if they were halfway through some kind of medicinal shopping trip.
There wasn't even any decent magazines or newspapers to read to take our minds of the heavy waiting room silence. It was then I noticed the small coffee table in the corner of the room which housed the magazines, behind a poor moaning woman leaning over two chairs. After making my way round the moaning woman my shoulders sagged with disappointment as I was faced with the difficult decision of choosing between a week old tv section of the Sunday Mail and a month old Woman's Own. You'd think they could at least have some decent magazines or newspapers in an NHS waiting room, something to take your mind of the pain or discomfort of having to be there in the first place.
Anyway, once Ka started popping the pills she got to work the next day on the parents' dinner. It all went really well with both sets of parents having a pleasant evening made all the easier for Ka and myself by the fact the two pairs get on so well. Both have three kids and busy family lives, both like their sport, music, tv, movies, books and holidays. Both toured America in the same year about a decade ago, which leads to all sorts of holiday reminiscing. Both the Mum's have started a small, unofficial book club with each other in which they swap thier latest tomes and both watched Mash, Cheers and Hill Street Blues which later led to another heavy reminiscing session about television in the good old days. This is all great as Ka and myself can easily get on with things in the kitchen, pouring drinks, servind up, along with the necessary dish washing and drying. the dish washing being the main reason why I'm then allowed in the kitchen. All the while, we'll be safe in the knowledge that there will be no difficult atmospheres or awkward silences. There's certainly little chance of much silence in any of the Reid or McGarva households, especially when the food's so good. Well done Ka.
Thanks to various family members, Ka and myself now have a mountain of Easter eggs to eat. They probably won't do our stomachs much good!