Linda's cake went into the pub function room in a cardboard box on her knees, in the front seat of Steve's car, at about the speed of a funeral. It was a Saturday evening at the end of August, warm and muggy, and the cake was iced white with a yellow 40 on top and a tiny red van parked underneath it. Linda would not let anyone else carry it, and she would not let me pay for the ingredients (£22), so I slipped the money into her handbag and she has agreed to pretend she hasn't found it.
Rob turned 40 on Sunday 30 August, and the party was the night before, on Saturday 29th. He'd said he wanted "a proper do in a pub, not a hall, and not a sit-down thing", which is the most specific request Rob has made since 2014. So that is what we did. I'm 38 and I hate organising anything that depends on forty people replying, but I did it with a group chat and a printed list on the fridge.
The room and the buffet
The function room is upstairs at the pub where Rob goes to watch the football when we can't have it at home. The room hire was free as long as we ordered the buffet by the Tuesday before, and the numbers were fixed when we ordered. I asked 46 people, 40 said yes and I gave the pub 40. The buffet was £6.50 a head, so £260, and it was sandwiches, sausage rolls, chicken goujons, wedges, coleslaw and a plate of vegetable sticks that Alfie ate nearly all of, which he has never once done at home.
Two people dropped out on the day, so 38 came, and I'd already paid for 40. That is £13 of buffet nobody ate. It was never going to be wasted, because Steve took two of the sausage rolls home in a napkin, but I'd still do the numbers more carefully next time.
- Buffet, 40 at £6.50: £260
- Cake ingredients (Linda baked): £22
- Decorations, banners and a foil 40 balloon: £18
- A bar tab to get the first round going: £40
That's £340 for the night, which works out at £8.95 a head for the 38 who came. The present was separate and wasn't a lot.
What went right
Rob delivered letters from 6:00 that morning, finished at 1:30, came home and slept for ninety minutes on the sofa with Mabel on his chest. At 7 he walked into the function room and found his mum and dad standing by the buffet table. Pat and Keith had told him three weeks earlier that Keith's knee meant they couldn't make the drive from Filey, and they'd come anyway, and stayed the night. Rob's face did what it does when Leeds score at the right end. He didn't say anything for about a minute, which is a record.
Hayley and Jordan came from Wakefield with Ivy, who is 19 months old and spent the evening being carried between people like a parcel. Priya came, and Sarah from the building society days made the drive from Harrogate. Jean from next door came in a navy dress, drank two small sherries, told Rob he'd never once left a parcel of hers on a wet step, and was home by nine. Isla ran a photo corner with a sheet and some bunting. Alfie wore his football shirt and told everyone he was "the son".
Steve made a speech of about two minutes. He said Rob was a good lad who had been delivering letters round north Leeds for fourteen years and in all that time had never lost anything that mattered. He then spoiled it by saying that I'd been "worth the wait", which got the biggest laugh of the night.
What didn't
The buffet came up at 8:20, and the kids were flagging by 7:45, so the first hour was crisps from behind the bar. The music was Steve's playlist, which stuck on the same eleven songs. The foil balloon lost its air by 9 and drooped over the cake like a tired guest. I would ask for the food at 7:15 next time, and I'd bring a speaker of my own.
Linda and Steve took the kids back to Bramley at nine, and Pat and Keith had Alfie's box room for the night. We were home by half past eleven. Rob sang quietly on the stairs, and Pat called down from the landing that some people were trying to sleep. By seven the next morning the cake was a quarter gone, there was icing on the kitchen worktop and Rob, officially 40, was still asleep.
