At 7pm yesterday, I headed over to Jon's for an asado and general social. I wasn't sure if I'd I'd know anyone there aside from Jon, but it turned out that Dan and Tom were there, with a mix of polo girls and some of Jon's friends from school.

It was my first asado, which for the unenlightened is an Argentinian BBQ. You take a large amount of meat (lamb and chicken) and cut it off in large sections, laying in on a low grill. The wood fire (critically not charcoal) is allowed to burn separately until it collapses right down, then the embers raked under the grill, so there is no flame, just hot coals below the meat. You then have to allow for the meat to cook; the longer the wait the better. The meat is then torn or cut into slices, pieces of bread dowsed in a lemon and mustard sauce and then the meat placed inside the bread. Tastes bloody fantastic.

The evening was meant to be a precursor to the party this coming Friday, in that Jon and I were meant to be discussing arrangements, but it didn't work out like that, and we spent most of the time on other subjects.

One thing that amused Tom, Angus and myself (after we eventually all admitted to it) was that had all been ID'd when we'd gone to buy beer, all at the same off licence, all separately, before we arrived at Jon's. At age 21, being ID'd is not considered a great achievement, but as Tom and Angus are both couple of years older than me it eased my embarrassment. What amused us most though was the girl behind the counter had done the same thing for all of us; she had taken one look at our driving licences, read the year out load (for me 1985) and then had taken out a calculator to work out whether we were over 18. I said to her "I'm 21 if it helps," but it didn't and she finished the calculation. She must have only been about 23 herself. And she's working in a shop, dealing with other peoples' money.

I suppose it's not quite as embarrassing as when I was 18 and on a night out to Birmingham when I was issued a child's ticket on a bus (bearing in mind you have to be under 14) when all my mates got adult fare. I didn't live that down for a couple of years.