Whodunit?

It was with great trepidation that I attended my first Murder Mystery "party" this bank holiday weekend. The whole idea of it filled me with dread, the dressing up, the dodgy accents, the amusing (or not so) character names... Mine was Flo Wing-Brookes - get it?! Hilarious.

As we listened to the inspector setting the scene (on tape, that's how dated this thing was!) my mind couldn't help but drift to memories (what were left of them anyway) of the previous night which had been spent watching a surprisingly good (and loud) 2-man band in Kentish Town. But, a swift kick in the shin from my husband was my queue to stop feeling sorry for myself and face facts! I was going to have to get on with tonight whether I wanted to or not.

So off we went, introducing our characters and slipping the "information you must disclose" as best we could and evading the "secrets" we wanted to hide. My attitude was still very much on the I don't care end of the spectrum until I began to realise that unless I did disclose all clues I was meant to, I would be hindering others, who were taking it more seriously, in solving the crime.

So I began hamming it up with the best of them (and given that two of our friends there were professional actors that took some doing!) As the rounds went on I could see I was not the only one struggling to keep up the enthusiasm and focus but there seemed to be an unspoken acknowledgement that we were all in this together and to bring things to a speedy, but also successful, conclusion we all needed to pull our weight.

As Charlotte said last week, sometimes we need to push ourselves outside our comfort zones. Now I can't say this was quite as rewarding as mastering two wheels for the first time, but I am sure I had a better night for it.

So, would I do it again - Murder Mystery evening, not for a while at least, but do something that "scares" me - absolutely!