So, last week you left Rachel and me in the car park of a pub near Newbury. Thanks a lot. It would have killed you to give us a lift?

Ha ha. No, but seriously. At the end of last week's review, we were kipping in our extremely classy campervan, sleeping off a boss lunch at Marco Pierre White's Yew Tree Inn before heading on to the 25th birthday party of a friend of Rachel's. It was, you will remember, to be a fancy-dress-bring-a-sleeping-bag party, and so I had hired something I could sleep, change and ablute in, to give me at least some chance of getting into the spirit.

We awoke after lunch around 5pm, sober now and ready to drive the half-hour to her friend's parents' farm. We cut quite a dash, I don't mind saying, in our gigantic motor home, rolling and bouncing into the meadow that was set aside for parking. Not least because it went with our outfits. For we went as Blondie, who I reckon must have toured in one of these, or something a little smaller.

I say we went "as Blondie". It was a slightly half-arsed affair. Rachel went as Debbie Harry, because she looks like her anyway (except a bit more athletic and rosy-cheeked and without the dodgy dark roots), and wore only a black plastic bin-bag and high heels (hubba, hubba, hubba ­ if the commercial bar were a less hidebound place I'd suggest she dress like that for work), and I went as the rest of the band, a scruffy bunch of dark-haired goons who wore black suits and coloured Converse. Nobody knew who we were supposed to be. They thought Rachel looked great and asked if she was Stig of the Dump, and then looked at me and asked why she'd invited the cab driver to stay.

"We're a pop group!" I offered by way of a clue.

"The Scissor Sisters?" They guessed.

"A really, really old pop group," Rach said, sheepishly.

"The White Stripes?"

It's tragic. 25-year-olds just haven't heard of Blondie. As far as the other party-goers were concerned, I was just an old geezer in a black suit who liked the look of his bird dressed in a bin-bag. Which was not, I suppose, so far from the truth.

But come dinner time none of it mattered. The birthday girl's parents keep not only a small herd of Belted Galloways (yummy), but also a flock of Black Welsh Mountain sheep ­ visible from the garden, hovering in the surrounding fields like giant bees. Six of their lambs were turning on spits when we arrived, and their flesh was just heavenly. The best party food I've ever had, the best spit-roast: it came in great piles on metal trays, warm juicy flesh, and loads of sweet, sweet fat and crispy skin. (Best thing about 25-year-old girls? They don't eat the fat, so there's more for you. OK, second best thing.)

Next morning, after breakfast, feeling smug and clean and well-slept (to be fair, I always feel like that), we rounded up Rachel's cousin, Charity, and a friend of hers and offered them a lift back to London. We'd done our private road-trip thing, and thought it would be fun to have a couple of "kids" in the back, sitting bolt upright at the table, seatbelts on, playing cards as we drove home.

However, at some point in the night somebody had mentioned the Wellington Arms at Baughurst to one of the kids, and soon they were screaming for their lunch.

Times Recommends

• Champagne cocktail
• Food that's good for body and soul
• Joe McCanta’s never-fail hangover-relief shake