Last updated 05:39, Friday, 19 September 2008

We were a mixed bunch. Motley even. All ages, shapes and sizes; complexions ranging from Mediterranean tan to Cumbria pasty face. Sipping Pimm’s through cucumber, we were in celebratory mood.

Had all managed to go seamlessly to plan, we’d have been sipping on the lawn. But as the gods have insisted on dictating this year, seamless plans again had been unpicked by persistent rain. So, we were confined to barracks – sipping, chatting, inhaling gravy aromas from the kitchen. It was a Brampton birthday bash for a Carlisle septuagenarian.

A nudge to the elbow sent two strawberries plopping over the rim of my glass into my handbag. Why do they call Pimm’s a drink? It’s a fruit bowl!

Still, it was the company that counted. Big Bill, all heart and tummy; matinee idol Lawrence; chuckling Donald; fashion plate Mary; elegant Sandra; style guru Heather (the birthday girl) and Josie her granddaughter, aged two... going on 20.

Josie had unfair advantage over the rest of us. She’d had a two-hour nap in the afternoon and – unbeknown to her solicitous parents – had further sharpened bright eyes and bushy tail with a couple of sneaky slurps from an unguarded fruit bowl.

“Ooh!” she said, very directly – for a two-year-old. “Big boobies!”

It was a show-stopper of the flawless kind. Reaching ambitiously from her mother’s arms to investigate more closely the ample bosom of her hostess, she was sharing heartfelt admiration at high volume with fellow guests.

“Big boobies!” she said again. “And pearls!”

“Yes – and her boobs are real!” I cooed to Josie who, in response, cast her eyes over my own in a threatening manner of comparison causing me to shuffle away awkwardly, vowing never again to mess with the higher intellect of children or puppies.

The birthday girl – Josie’s stylish grandma – proudly confided the child, even at two, was already developing ultra-feminine tastes for the finer, more important things in any woman’s life... impressive breasts, strings of pearls, handbags and lunch.

“She’ll rue the day,” I returned. “Big boobs are no fun. They get in the way of everything – and you have to dig holes in the sand when you’re tanning your back. Pearls and handbags, on the other hand...”

The birthday tea was a traditional affair – or so I supposed. Mixing and matching across generations; bringing together family, friends, old and new acquaintances, it was posh enough for a champagne toast, sufficiently homey for bangers and mash with onion gravy – trifle and cake for afters. Very Carlisle. Very rainy. Very Cumbrian, I imagined.

It’s many years since I saw such a gathering of people who not only knew each other well but who had also known the parents and grandparents of just about everyone in the room.

“It doesn’t happen in bigger cities,” I said to Joe, as he tucked into his trifle. “People scatter so far, they no longer know where home is. Carlisle’s more like a town, I think.”

“A village,” said Joe, keeping an eye on Josie as she posed with Fashion Plate Mary’s pretty cream handbag, which perfectly matched her party dress and pearls. “Always has been.”

Our generous hostess, the one with the big boobies and towering twinkly heels, had frequently said pretty much the same. She smiled wryly. She would though, wouldn’t she?

She finds it amusing that I find it surprising how family and friendship should have survived so well, still strongly in tact, in this curious county, when elsewhere it clings on for dear life under burdening outside pressures causing the close-knit to fracture and scatter.

Birthday girl broke all reverie as she bustled hither and thither to fill every glass with bubbly in preparation for her toast. Somehow she has managed to pinch a decade or more from her maker.

Either that or she’s made a pact with His rival on promise of pay-back in another time and place.

In common with so many Cumbrians (witness the photos of Diamond Wedding celebrants in the pages of this paper), she defies her chronology with mystifying youthfulness. The toast, I reckoned, would probably be to the priceless painting in her attic – and wondered if those strawberries in the bottom my bag might go rather well with the champers in my glass.

“There’s only one possible toast,” she said, a little tearily, raising her fizz towards a sea of faces, as rain hammered on the conservatory roof.

“All that matters... family and friends.”

Should have known it. But hang onto that thought, Heather. It vanishes frighteningly quickly when neglected. And nowadays it is too easily neglected.

Josie applauded her grandma, smiled at her sweetly... and blew out the candle on her cake. You know, I reckon that girl will get precisely the boobs – and the pearls – she wants.