Well, all that planning paid off in the end. We ended up with one of the most beautiful days of weather I've seen in England in the last year. It was blue skies, a slight breeze, and about 28 degrees celsius. Which someone told me translates to about 82 degrees in human temperature. With the humidity, I began to worry that people were going to melt. This is England, after all. Where people aren't used to being in direct sunshine for sustained periods of time. Three jumps on the gigantic bouncy castle, and half the kids were red and sweating, and I was fetching them ice water. After a few minutes explanation to kick it off (where I explained what a boiled peanut is, and why anyone would want to consume one on purpose) I just pointed to the labels we had put out beside each dish to help avoid the rash of questions. This year's menu included:

126 pound roast pig

fried chicken

brunswick stew (halal and regular)

grilled cod & salmon

bbq pork skewers (marinated in 7up & soy sauce - a toss to the Filipinos in the crowd)

cornbread

collard greens

grits casserole

corn pudding

tomato cobbler (this is the Martha/Oprah recipe, so you know it's good eats)

grilled corn salad

cherry cobbler

peach cobbler

the aforementioned boiled peanuts ... and some other stuff I'm forgetting. Probably because it was all a blur after my Bride booted me out of bed at 5:45am to go start frying the chicken. One person came up to me afterwards to complement me on the lovely "couscous dish." At my confused look, she clarified: "the one with eggs. and cheese...?" I laughed out loud. She meant the grits. I've converted a Brit to grits. My work here is nearly complete. The pig was cooked nearly whole (though we did ask the butcher to remove the head, as this whole gig was nominally for a 5 year old birthday party). And it was roasted to perfection, with a lot of delicious crackling. God bless the crackling. When you die and go to heaven, St. Peter will greet you with a high five and a plate of pork crackling if you've been very, very good indeed. Because there your heart won't groan quite so loudly after the third helping of the fried skin. Why is it, I wonder, that the pig skin is so good? There aren't that many animals where you salivate at the news that someone's cooking up a mess of skin. "Mmmm. Cow skin" just doesn't seem to work. All in all, we had about 160 people show up, 60+ of which were under 10. My landlord (who lives next door) walked over about an hour (and 70 cars) into the party. Fortunately, you couldn't ask for a nicer guy, and with a extra helping of pig and a cold beer, he was content to play the congenial squire that he is. After the food and some excellent music provided by this fabulous band (you know they're fabulous - it's in their name), we started the kids games. Starting with a water balloon fight between the five year olds and all other kids (where I made the older kids start halfway across the field and the fiver's right next to the bucket of ammo). The water balloon fight was especially appreciated because we followed with the sack race. With the burlap. In the sacks. Jumping in hot, wet clothes. With extra burlap. The kids, they love us. After the three legged race, we wrapped up the formal games. I tried to convince a bunch of them that there'd be a really cool prize for the "Who Can Pick Up The Most Little Smashed Bits Of Water Balloons" game, but had no takers. The party ended with dinosaur cake, as all parties should. The Critter was happily exhausted (though she insisted on opening all her presents before going to bed). And my Bride and I were content at having pulled off another bbq bash. As it happened, I had invited enough of the bluegrass musicians I have met over the past year that when the first band stopped playing, a second whipped their instruments out and started, which was a pleasant treat. I got to talking with one person or another that was there, and was laughing about the fact that when the Critter does eventually grow up, get married, and have kids of her own, she'll have some interesting conversations with her husband-to-be: "Of course there will be a bluegrass band. What healthy kid doesn't have a bluegrass band at their birthday party?!" Screwing up my kid's sense of reality is what I'm here for, after all.

I haven't really mentioned all of the preparation activity going on at our house the past few weeks. Tomorrow is our 3rd annual Cheshire Bluegrass BBQ, which is an event that's been in the works for some time now. (Previously Previously-er.). Every year, this event gets a little bigger, a little more exciting. We add a new event (this year it's three-legged & sack races, using the 50 burlap potato sacks I ordered from a farm producer specially for the party) and increase the amount of food and of course, the size of the pig. This year we've had something north of 150 people RSVP, including 60 or so kids 6 and under. Why do we do this to ourselves you ask? Because we love the bluegrass music and various porcine-infused culinary delights that is Southern cuisine. And pain. Obviously, we love the pain. Plus, we get to introduce a whole bunch of British folk to the joy of grits. Which is reason enough in itself, if you ask me. Thank heavens my bride is a natural project manager and obsessive note taker. When it came time to order the pig this year, she whipped out her notes from last year's event with the quantities, prices, and suppliers used, to ensure we had everything we needed in one phone call. Her background as an analytical scientist shows through weeks before the party, when she starts putting together an excel plan of everything that has to happen. She spends hours muttering over her computer, crafting the ideal plan for effecient execution of massive quantities of fried food and roast pig. She's got the next 36 hours planned out in 15 minute increments, maximizing the number of cupcakes or corn pones we can get out of our two ovens in a way that would make Volkswagen manufacturing production planners sweaty with Germanic lust. Fortunately, my Bride realized long ago that my operating style is much different from hers. She is Otto von Bismarck to my Jed Clampett. Everything will get done, but I may have to sit by the front door and whittle a spell while I think things over. And maybe take a dip in the concrete swimmin' hole. She just hands me my list of things to get done a couple of days ahead and leaves me to it. My jobs this year, as always, includes setting up things, as well as sorting out the meat and beer and various vendors (bouncy castle, the band, and the pig delivery guy, of course). I have been getting in the mood by listening to bluegrass on my iPod non-stop for the past several days. Note: I have 943 different bluegrass songs on my iPod. This does not count the separate Old Time or Bluegrass Gospel categories. If I played the 943 songs without interuption, it would last for 43 hours, 24 minutes and 17 seconds. That has just got to make me the coolest person you know. By the end of these events, we're always exhausted, but in the best way. I admit, I'm looking forward to this year's bbq more than ever. This will, of course, all come out in the Critter's therapy later in life. No doubt she will blame her ills on parents who would forego the normal Princess or Dora birthday parties in favor of banjos, fiddles and whole cooked pigs. I'm guessing that it's not your typical Queen's School for Girls birthday fare.

"Did you see that? "What?" "Your daughter just opened one of the french doors, and then walked straight into the other closed one." "Are you laughing at your daughter's pain?" "No. I'm just saying." "And what are you saying?" "Her, apple. You, tree." "Mm. Yeah. Ok."