....or was this an unusually frugal picnic?

[GeraldineAubergine]

last week my dp invited his friend over with his new girlfriend (she's 20 he's 49,unnecessary but I felt I had to add it) and his daughter who was visiting for a week. I bought beer, coke, snacks and we ordered takeaway pizzas as it was a treat for his dd's holiday. All was lovely. Anyhow to say thanks he invited us (dp, ds and myself for a picnic yesterday. I didn't eat thinking il fill up on delicious picnic food.
The picnic consisted of ( for 4 adults and 2 kids): 2 cheese sandwiches cut into 4, 1 small prepack salad, a pear and an apple plus 3 low fat yoghurts. There was a carton of oj too. And six packets of hula hoops which I'm glad I brought :). It was a bit awkward. Am I being unrealistic was this a reasonable picnic? Or do I have greedy tendencies?

these "2 cheese sandwiches cut into 4" - does that mean that they ended up as 4 sandwiches (so rectangles) or each sandwich was cut into quarters (sp little squares)?

cos the former means you had 4 sandwiches and the latter is 8 sandwiches (in meanie land of course)

Like 2 normal size sandwiches cut into 4

sardine's taking it in tuns to eat.

Yes, OP, are they teeny tiny leprechauns?

OOh OOoh. I know. You are actually dead. 6th Sense stylee! They thought it was just your DP. There's a lot of that about recently.

oh.

so, 3 people got yoghurt, 4 people got a sandwich, 1 got a small prepack salad, 1 got a pear and 1 got an apple.

that's 10 pieces of food for 6 people.

it still doesn't work!!

ah!! unless! the adults each were supposed to get one item of food, and the children only 1 each.

I have felt a bit funny recently. My theory is he just goes to burger king once a week eats two whoppers (have seen him) and that's it for a week. Like a python or similar.

Her being 20 is a red herring - come on, people here were married with children and mortgages at 20! Even if you don't know how much 7 people eat, you know how much one person eats, don't you? You'll have packed yourself a lunch, or eaten a packed lunch? Sandwich, piece of fruit, yogurt, bag of crisps, nibbly things as appropriate, drink each. Easy.

Also ds licked both the pear and the apple before I could grab him so no one really wanted them then.

Am rather bristling at all the assumptions here that it was the GF's responsibility to make the picnic food (apart from the feminist analyses, clearly ) especially "You could invite them to a picnic and ask them to arrive early so the GF can help you organise the food. Then she can see for next time."

(It probably was a failure to communicate thing, but still, I don't see why they couldn't have sorted the food out together. Actually I think the sex explanation is most likely )

Did they look embarrassed when they realised?

I did this once on a day out with my dad, he said 2are you taking a picnic?" i said yeah (thinking he'd do the same) When we got there i realised he didnt have anything so had to share ours :( Now we always double check lol.

I don't think he was embarrassed, it was just me and dp who were.

Did everything (except the pear and apple) get eaten?

Not the yoghurts either because they were a) warm and b) had a lot of that waterybit you sometimes get on yoghurts at the top. The sandwiches were a bit squashed and sweaty but beggars can't be choosers. I think next time we have a picnic il just go to m's and get the food from there on the way.

They'd only brought food for themselves by the sounds of it. The three yoghurts for 3 people is a bit of a giveaway. Crossed wires there.

I've been pondering what constitutes a sandwich... so if you enlighten me please. Disregarding the filling, is a sandwich:

a) two pieces of bread, however it is cut for shape?
b) one piece of bread, cut in half (triangle or rectangle)?
c) anything less, the sandwich can be 1/4, 1/6, 1/8 - it is the shape of the finished thing, however small?

I really want to know. If you buy a sandwich in the shop, it's two pieces of bread always, but I know that views vary.

Thank you for making me question something that's been floating around in my head for years. I shall be able to sleep tonight!

I'd say that a nominal sandwich is two whole slices of bread with something between, however you choose to cut it up.

i think she means 2 slices of bread with filling ,cut into rectangles.

So no-one really ate anything?

I'm a bit as to why you or your DP didn't say anything. The three yoghurts does suggest they packed just for themselves (I think he probably delegated to GF without proper instruction).

If you had mentioned it surely everyone could have had a bit of a giggle at the misunderstanding and then you could have hot-footed it to the shop for some decent food rather than going hungry?

If it wasn't a mis-communication then they clearly are bonkers!

Yes linerunner that about the truth of it. We were all hungry and somewhat embarressed (2 of us) and pretending it was all normal.

Tight arses.

I was all for saying YABU for just taking hula-hoops and then I saw "'food and drink sorted, just bring a blanket' "

barking mad.

Well, you've got to admire the stoic Britishness of the whole thing, I suppose.

IF you don't often feed more than one person you can find it very difficult to work out how much to take.
My Gran used to work out how much to feed our family when we visited (my 2 parents and 3 teenage children) by this method:

1. I don't each much so I don't count.
2. The children don't eat much so they don't count
3. 2 adults, so multiply what I eat by 2.

I remember my df's glaring us into politeness as we sat down to the welcome meal for all 6 of us consisting of 4 fishfingers, chips, and half a small tin of beans. Then we went shopping afterwards.

That's a shit-nic

are you sure you were not supposed to bring your own food??

I have been out on picnics with friends and all our DC together and we have brought food for our own families iyswim although we do end up bunging it all together to share