Challenge #305 - week of 1st October 2018

Wow, it's October and the year is flying by. Of course, you know that I'm smiling every day because it's autumn and simply the best time of the year. I seem to be more organised, more energetic and get more done - (well, within reason ha ha!) - with the longer evenings and the full feeling of autumn in the air that seems to feed me.

But it's at this time of year that our social calendar fills up even more than in the summer as dinner arrangements are made and squeezed in before crazy season starts with birthdays and Christmas in November and December.

Which got me thinking about this week's prompt. I'd like you to be inspired by dinner parties.

Now, we call them dinner parties round here but you might have a more relaxed name for them - I'm talking about simply getting together with friends around the dinner table. You might cook together with friends and then sit around the kitchen island nibbling and chatting together. Or it might be a more formal occasion where the cooking is done behind closed doors and presented on your best wedding dinner service with fancy napkins and crystal glasses. The latter is more me because a) I'm chaotic and untidy in the kitchen which means I don't want anyone to see it! b) we are foodies and c) I'm more old-fashioned and still get a huge kick from getting out our porcelain and crystal and using it. :-)

You might want to talk about dinner with friends or with family. For special times on the calendar such as Easter, birthdays or Christmas. Or relaxed events where it just sort of happened unexpectedly. You might have silverware, dinner service or glasses with a story to capture this week. Or you might want to recall a particular dinner with a special meaning or story behind it.

For example, once we invited friends for an English Bonfire Night dinner for them complete with a menu and theme! We even had flower arrangements on the table created in English Wellington boots which were quite the eye catcher! It was a lot of fun, and explaining the whole story to them, with the history of Bonfire Night and what English elements we had included, was all part of the evening. I wonder if I've made a layout about this? Perhaps this week is the week!

I really feel that food, drink, eating together and spending time with friends and family are at the core of a happy life and recording these times in my albums is very important. I hope you agree and find a way to take this inspiration for yourself this week.

And if you are inspired, I hope that you'll share. You can do that in our Facebook group here. Tag your entry with #WMXX so we know exactly which inspiration you've taken.