When people are close friends, like an old married couple, disagreements are bound to surface sooner or later. The more people you have, the more bickering and complaints seem to crop up.
Once, a mate told me about the way they celebrated New Year’s Eve with friends. Normally, three families would ring in the year together, gathering at one of their houses, but last year one family decided to skip it and instead spend the holiday with her parents.
So, the remaining two families chose to split their eveningpart of the night in one home, part in the other. As always, the food and drink were sorted out together; they pooled their pounds and bought everything they needed for a proper knees-up.
Everyone turned up with their children in tow. They all sat around the table, sharing toast after toast and stories, until the clock struck midnight. Suddenly, the hosts began gathering up the plates and stashing leftovers in the fridge. At first, it wasnt clear what was happening, but when one of them fetched the hoover and started tidying up, the message landed. That was a very British signalit was time to take your leave. Not exactly what youd call good manners, is it?
But the curious bit is, when they later turned up at the other friends house, no one was in any rush to call it a night. The party lingered until dawnthey ate, laughed, and poured another round without a worry.
Perhaps the hoover did the trick for my colleague in that first house, but then, he is simply far too polite for his own good.
