4:00 pm – Still cooking, on the last of it now. My neighbour arrived. “Anything I can do?” I almost wept, but instead flung a duster in her hand and told her not to worry about anything above eye level. After some discussion, we both agreed that we would leave the chandeliers and wine rack undusted as the plaster dust gave them a fashionable Gothic look.

5:00 pm – Called my daughter. “Where are you?”

“Oh just having coffee with a friend, be home soon.”

7:30 pm – The moment had come. I pulled the steamer out of the bag. It was the biggest, most impressive steamer I had ever seen. It had three tiers and at each tier it had these little handles on the sides that turned up at the ends. Appropriately, it looked like a sacred Shao-lin temple. Just the thing to cook the yummy Chinese dumplings. I sat it on the stove and brought the water to the boil. I was so excited about serving up the dumplings and pulled them out of the refrigerator. I placed the two big bagfuls on the bench and opened them.

To my horror, the contents of each bag flowed slowly, moving like a big, white lava stream, spilling onto the bench. I stared at two, large glutinous heaps, all eighty darling little dumplings were now joined into two big dumpling piles. I was stunned! My two daughters looked over my shoulder. “What’s that?

“Oh joy!”

Well, two of us each took a heap, but I am afraid there was no separating the dumplings. They would never return to their former glory. So, with hands covered in dumpling dough, I realised the door bell was ringing. It was 8:00 pm.

The party went well. Someone eventually remembered to turn off the Shao-lin steamer on the stove and the dumplings were dumped into the refrigerator for the night.

7:00 am – Saturday morning I went to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Opened the refrigerator for the milk and there they were, the wretched dumplings! I’m afraid I haven’t had the heart for dumplings much since the party. From now on, I think I’ll stick to pasta.