The hen of all hens - Chapter 3

Me, blissfully unaware of what was to come...

I won’t lie. The the minute we returned to the Hen Do HQ, the first thing I wanted to do was get out of my red lycra number. It was starting to chafe – how Britters coped I’ll never know.

It was revealed that, after the non-stop high jinx of the last 24 hours, we were having a nice evening together of food and wine in the cottage. (And the taxi blokes probably needed a break anyway.) So we all slipped into comfy clothes and jim jams. Some of us had a little practice of the dance routine, while Emma and some of the others shut themselves in the kitchen.

"right leg, left leg, lunge and pop and left arm punch and ...oh sod it pass me a biscuit."

It turned out they were preparing a starter of tomato, mozzerella and basil, followed by a chilli con carne served with naan and rice. Bless BG Emma, she'd made it in the week, frozen it and bought it with her to feed the hens! It was delicious and in between being bowled over by the military-style planning ahead of an evening meal, I began to wonder why the girls were relentlessly filling my glass. It was like that film Speed where Keanu isn’t allowed to let the bus drop below 50mph, but a pinot grigio version. The contents of the glass must never drop below the brim - hurry she’s taken a sip!! Top her up before it gets any lower!!

Why were they trying to get me drunk? They couldn’t possibly be up to something else. Could they?!

Emma's in charge of food, Jen's in charge of penis shaped cutlery. Nothing changes.

After the cheesy starter and before the main was served, we were ushered into the lounge to gather around the TV. Oh nice, I thought, maybe a girlie movie while we paint our nails? How stupid of me. Hadn’t I learned anything from the last 24 hours??

No, what came next was the inevitable Mr & Mrs style style quiz, a popular staple at the last three hen dos I had attended. Except this one had a twist. Claire flicked the telly on, and there on the screen was my fiance. With Best Girl Claire’s husband Ross.

Now, I don’t think I can go into too much detail here in case a) someone is offended or b) MI5 see this blog (well they might be reading eh?) and arrest us all for suspicious behaviour. Let’s just say Ross was pretending to kidnap Paul and pump him for information. And in a way that was less than politically correct.

So the basic premise of the video was Ross asking hubby-to-be a question about us, and then Claire would hit pause while I guessed his answer. (accompanied by hollers of “drink while you think Lou!!” from Jen). If our answers matched, ace. If not, I drink even more – if that was at all possible.

To my joy (not) many drunken antics from my dim, distant and often quite embarrassing past popped up in this quiz, and with each question my Mom's jaw dropped lower. I think the bit that horrified her most was the answer to the question "What did your fiancé do wrong the night you met?"

The answer was he snogged me so much his stubble burned and grazed my chin. (I'm all class me!) At the time I was mortified, I had what looked like a large branflake on my face, and I had to strike a permanent ‘stroking chin in a thoughtful manner’ pose for an entire week to cover it up. (Plus side, everyone at work thought I was concentrating mega hard.) If anyone did see it, I told them I had fallen off my bike.

Anyway the video was genius. And now I understood why he’d come back drunk from that evening without me at BG Claire’s house.

So we scooped Mom’s chin off the floor, topped up my wine glass (because it was a millimeter below being full to the brim after all) and got stuck into the main course. If that wasn’t enough, for dessert Em produced a Nigella malteser cake! And before I had chance to forget that this was a hen do, it was served with comedically shaped forks (guess?) and the top was decorated with maltesers in the shape of....you get the idea.

Thank goodness my jim jam bottoms were elasticated cos I was stuffed. So we all then adjourned to the lounge and I was placed in what I referred to as the throne of danger - the chair they placed me in every time something outrageous happened.

I was positioned in front of a white wipey board, which Emma had brought with her – I assumed it was because she was a teacher. Don’t all teachers carry a wipe board with them at all times? You know, for impromptu maths lessons and such like?

Up until now, we’d been doodling phalluses on it, (sorry Mom) but it was actually about to be used for a game of Pictionary - with all the clues about me. Of course.

I love pictionary, my favourite part being when the artist gets all frustrated that no
one can guess the answer so resorts to just jabbing at the picture with the felt pen, hoping that will help. Which of course, it doesn’t.

And it was at the point where poor Hannah was frustratedly stabbing the board with a blue marker pen and I was trying not to spill my overly full wine glass, that I noticed a few hens were missing.

Suddenly someone nodded at someone else, and a nudge turned into several winks. Then furniture was swept aside and the unmistakable intro to Lady GaGa’s Bad Romance suddenly blasted from the iPod.

Then someone whispered, “not ready, go again.”

And once again the unmistakable intro to Lady GaGa’s Bad Romance suddenly blasted from the iPod.

There was an air of tension in the room and a feeling of fear washed over me. No surely they hadn’t?!? …they couldn’t have…??..we’re in the middle of the countryside…!!..I’m in my jim jams!!…I have cake around my mouth…..!!

Suddenly the door swung open and in marched a policeman.

A very big policeman.

Was I about to be arrested for crimes against red lycra? Was I going to be frog-marched off the premises for stealing that jar of coffee from Tesco when I was a student (sorry Mom) or not completing my Census form before the deadline?

As he did a little dance routine, followed by some press-ups and then gyrated his nether-regions far too close to my face, I began to suspect he might not be a real policeman.

I could see no walkie-talkie for a start. Although there was clear evidence of a truncheon. (oh come on, if I can't wheel out a truncheon innuendo here where can I?!?).

And then he started taking his clothes off.

Now, I’m not going to give a blow-by-blow (ooh matron) account of what he did. I am pretty sure you can use your imaginations. Let’s just say he was very strong, rather athletic and I’m pretty sure that’s not what handcuffs are designed for.

And all I kept thinking was “I AM IN MY BLOODY PYJAMAS!!!”

(Which was quickly followed by "Why aren't I wearing my glasses?!?!")

After quite possibly the longest three minutes of my life, he exited the room as quickly as he arrived. I glanced around to see that my hens were wearing looks of horror/glee/shock and my Mom appeared to be hiding behind the sofa.

BG Claire popped her head around the door, and explained that Axl (for that was his name. Hmm really??) was just velcroe-ing his trousers back together in the kitchen while BG Emma was feeding him some of her cake. With a penis shaped fork. (only my mates would be watching him get dressed while feeding him cake...)

Apparently he was explaining to them (as he mopped the baby oil off his shaved chest) that he was on his way to his next job, where he would magically appear as a surgeon for a bunch of people from the medical profession. Lovely!

Me, post ‘arrest’. (Insert gag about taking down my particulars/large truncheons/shiny helmets etc etc etc)

Once Axl had left the building, there was an obvious air of relaxation from all the hens – it was weird, they all visibly collapsed, clearly mentally exhausted from keeping so many secrets for such a long time and from the effort of two days of whispering up corners. Meanwhile I was completely dazed, unable to fully comprehend exactly what had just happened. Or in fact what had kept happening to me over the course of the weekend.

I noticed my glass had stopped being topped up, and judging by the slumping of each and every hen, I felt confident that everything they had planned for me had happened.

And oh my word, what a LOT had happened (three chapters worth in fact!!)

Hoarse from laughter and with the smell of stripper baby oil on my jim jams, the Hen finally toddled off to bed.


ps the swimming cozzie, spare pants and mars bar were all red herrings. Very funny ladies.