“Just a few people” are coming for dinner

“Come round for something easy” is a lovely message to send on a Tuesday. By Saturday afternoon, you may find yourself considering whether the salad needs a different bowl and wondering why you own five entirely satisfactory napkins. Five is an awkward number once six people have agreed to come.

The trouble is that the imagined evening arrives fully dressed. Everybody is laughing around a table you have somehow laid before beginning to cook. In the actual house, the table is holding the shopping and someone has texted to ask whether they should bring anything. You say no, because that seemed hospitable when you started typing. Then you remember the ice.

We would be inclined to forgive the napkins early. A comfortable evening asks a few less glamorous things of a room. Can people sit without moving a lamp? Is there somewhere for the person at the end of the sofa to put a glass? Can you get from the kitchen to the table without asking two guests to stand? Those are the arrangements that get noticed while everyone is trying to enjoy themselves.

When the first guests arrive, you are still carrying a tea towel. People settle at different ends of the sofa, so you pull a table out of the nest and slide it towards the person balancing a glass on their knee. The brown tops and black supports sit easily among the warm upholstery; there is no need to rearrange the whole room. You can finally put down the tea towel and hear the end of the story. Later, the little tables will tuck together again.

At dinner, the pale-green Mia carafe travels round with the bread. You have put the water on the table, which saves a trip to the tap, although the serving spoon is still on the kitchen counter. The vegetables arrive in the low blue dish. Against the familiar plates, its colour is satisfying; the exposed terracotta rim suits the linen and timber around it. Everything is visible, including the potato someone is hoping will remain until the dish reaches them. By now, the plain tumblers and textured green glass look quite at home together. Nobody appears to be examining the napkins.

Making space for the food shifts the flowers a little. With a few stems divided between the small Mia vases, you can move one towards the end of the table and leave the others where they are. There is still colour along its length, and you can see the person opposite. We like the slightly uneven arrangement that emerges once people begin passing dishes around.

At some point, somebody asks for the recipe. Somebody else wants to know whether the chair came with the table. A glass is moved to make room for bread. You remember the food left in the oven just in time, or almost in time, and the evening begins to resemble the invitation you sent before the napkin question arose.

The best part may happen after the plates have been cleared, when nobody is quite ready to leave. People lean back, the conversation changes direction and there is no next course to organise. The table is carrying a water carafe, three stems in separate vases and a few crumbs. You can leave the washing-up for a while. There is still something you wanted to ask the person sitting opposite.