If so you'll know the hard reality of getting a group of friends and relatives organized. Maybe not quite as difficult as herding cats but certainly on a par with teaching one to fetch.
 The first phase is choosing the date to suit you and your family. It can't be a weekday evening because the boss doesn't see shopping for sausages as a good reason for letting the Parsons account go to the firm across town. It has to be a weekend, but when? On the 23rd Mark (15 year old son - unlikely to manage 16 with current body parts intact) is competing in his first skateboarding tournament, which should take about 2 hours for the competition and 3 for the casualty ward. On the 25th Julie (14 year old daughter - currently between Barbie and black lipstick) and her friends have planned a social evening on the wall in front of the local Spar. Attendance is mandatory; the penalty for failure is to become the subject of the evening's discussion.
Fortunately a teenager's perception of the future can be measured in days and a date in a few weeks time is sufficiently remote for them to see it as 'whenever' (accompanied with a disinterested shrug and a glazed expression - excellent, the most positive reaction this year). March the 10th is the date and you have a list of friends and relatives, which manages to avoid the more significant conflict areas, ready from the last party.
 Letter writing was never your strong point, even when the required elements are just venue, what to bring, date and time; not requiring much in the way of expressive arts training but just not your style. The phone is much more straightforward. Two days later; four conversations with answering machines, that probably won't be listened to; two wrong numbers, one willing to come anyway; three getting back to you; and Uncle Frank who's bringing some sausages. Looking good, a better response than last year!
The evening of the party rolls around. With no idea who's bringing what you have to play safe. You cant afford to feed thirty people marinated stake or other such delectable morsels so it's off with Mark to the local Spar to fetch sausages from the chiller and Julie from the wall (crisis summit meeting - Angela isn't best friends with Jade anymore).
No one was overly organized about writing down the time to arrive, apart from Uncle Frank who got the time precisely and will arrive spot on 5.00pm, tomorrow. A steady influx descends over the next three hours, dragging out the start of the party but softening the blow of the inevitably repeated phrase, "I wasn't sure what to bring so I brought sausages!" You see a vision of next week's meals stretching before you like links of sausages, exactly like links of sausages.
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