Some years ago I was on jury duty. Because I was at university, the idea of doing something that didn’t involve listening to a lecturer drone on filled me with excitement. It wasn’t an inconvenience like it would be now passed off with a teeth gritted “civic duty” but something I looked forward to. I was hoping for an interesting case-who doesn’t? Yet the luck of the draw, and probably a good thing, was that it was a robbery. A good thing in that it wasn’t anything more gruesome. I don’t know if I could look at actually murder scene photos. I mean to watch it on Law & Order is one thing but real ones are far too frighteningly real.

It was a robbery case in which a young man held up a chemist. He was dishevelled and the cheap shirt and tie appeared to be purchased solely for this appearance as he struggled with the tie as if it were a noose around his neck. He had very little in the way of alibi-an alibi witness who he only knew by his first name and who could not be produced. The staff from the chemist store were reliable and clear in their testimony. It seemed to everyone on their side that he was guilty.

However, despite out gut instincts, his poor testimony (described as shifty at best) we had to find him not guilty. Not because we didn’t think he was guilty, we all thought that he was, but the prosecution hadn’t done their job of proving him guilty which is of course where the burden of proof rests. I remember their shocked faces when the sentence was read out. It was a family business and people were wondering how we could have let him go. We were led out one way and everyone in the courtroom another so we couldn’t explain why we had come about with that answer. I didn’t feel guilty for that because we did what we were supposed to do and the judge had reiterated that they had to prove that it was him beyond a reasonable doubt just before we went in for deliberations. But I have been thinking about it lately given the developments in the U.S. trial of Casey Anthony.

With so much focus these past few weeks on babies in a most disturbing light I wanted to do something that was light and cute and joyful. And that’s where my friend Christie comes in. She has a baby girl called Poppy who has the most squeezable cheeks. Poppy was about to become baptised and Mr NQN and I were invited along. I decided to make some cookies for Christie to serve her guests at the meal after Poppy’s baptism. When I was talking to her on the phone I mentioned what I was going to make little baby cookies and after some discussion we decided on Poppy and Friends cookies – like a United Colours of Bennetton baby cookie selection to reflect who Poppy might become friends with and her half French African cousin that was to come in the next few months. Then Christie asked if I wouldn’t mind making them as a little gift and putting them in little bags with ribbon and I happily obliged.

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“Do I ever smother you?” I asked Mr NQN one evening. Mind you I asked him this while I was about 30 cms away his face, staring at him intently and perched in between his view and the television.

“Sometimes” he said “But I know that you’re starved for attention.”

“Oh goody” I said “So you understand.”

It’s true, I spend all day at home, sometimes venturing out for lunch or to research a story. Usually when he comes home I have a host of very important things to show him. There’s the important list of what they discussed on The View that day as well as any funny posts from my favourite blogs. Or there is my injury sustained from practising dancing like a tap dancing chicken (really quite hard to co-ordinate and should not be attempted in high heels). I should qualify that by saying that it is a long story- we were chuckling at his mum talking about flamenco aka flamingo dancing and well you know how silly conversations progress…

Sometimes as soon as he gets through the door I want to ask his opinion on something that I have cooked. This particular evening, as he stepped through the door I grabbed his hand and took him into the kitchen and ask his opinion on a recipe. It was a brown sugar shortbread that I was making for my mother (S.W.L.B. aka she who loves butter) for Mother’s Day. I wasn’t sure if I should even put the shortbread up. It wasn’t anywhere near as picturesque as I wanted. In fact I thought it looked kind of plain. He convinced me otherwise and told me that it had a home made country style look.

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As you read this, I will no doubt be frantically preparing for Christmas. It will be an onslaught, self induced, of the familial kind. Mr NQN’s eccentric family will come crashing into my own eccentric-but-in-a-different-way family in our annual Christmas celebration. Somewhat foolishly, we had volunteered to have the dinner at our place as I am attempting my first roast goose for the meat eaters and I didn’t want to schlepp it across town to another place.

“Oh it will be fine to have 15 people!” I said to Mr NQN. “We had more for Halloween!”

“Yes but everyone wasn’t sitting down at a table” he pointed out, quite rightly. I hate it when he’s right.

“Oh yes…that…But look! I bought some red ribbon!”

I don’t quite know how we’ll fit fifteen people around our table that seats eight comfortably. We tossed around the idea to have a separate, smaller table, not for children but for parents. We pictured using smaller chairs and cutlery and telling them to “Keep the noise level down so that everyone can enjoy dinner!”. Ahh that remains a fantasy…Perhaps it wasn’t such a great idea after all and I am hoping that it will go off with a minimum of fuss and without us feeling like a horde of people had breached our perimeter.

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