A murderous night

I'm not over for the day yet. Because yesterday (and today) were eventful. After buying my chickens and cream and milk and eggs from Dana, I went home to prepare for a dinner party.

It might sound frightfully old school and 80s, but dinner parties are pretty big out here - in fact for us and our friends, they are pretty much the entertainment staple. There are several reasons for this:
1) Going out to eat round here is a) not that cheap and b) not that tasty (unless you trek into Kansas City and frankly, who can be bothered?). It's much easier to all get round to someone's houe, crack open a few bottles of vino and enjoy some good chat and good food.
2) If you go out, someone's got to drive. If you go round to someone's house, you can usually stay over if you have too much to drink (we all live in ridiculously large houses, so there are plenty of spare beds). If you host, you can just roll into bed at the end of the night.
3) We've pretty much exhausted the options of properly going out locally. There's always the High Noon Saloon, but Thursday nights are the best (karaoke night) and you've still got the driving problem.

So we all pretty much pile round and take it in turns. Last night I decided to mix things up a little. Lingering on our bookshelf was a Murder Mystery party kit that I had been given as an 18th birthday present (yes, it really has been hanging around for 11 years). What better time to make use of it than on a rainy night in a strange place with a bunch of good mates? So I issued invitations and everyone duly turned up in full costume. It was great fun - we solved the murder adequately enough, everyone had plenty to eat and drink and we all retired happy. Roll on the next one.