Why the perfect time to start a party is 5pm

Long-term readers of The Telegraph will know that back in the day, I used to be a party girl. Every week I would write a column about the hedonistic experiences I’d recently had, and every week my inbox would fill with emails from readers beseeching me to settle down with a nice man. Well, be careful what you wish for, because here I am, settled down and shuddering in horror as I write the words “party girl” Not because I feel embarrassed about my youthful antics, but because today, covered in HRT patches and intense antioxidant skin lifting serum, the thought of going to a party fills me with a dread matched only by the thought of having to eat kangaroo testicles in the jungle with Nigel Farage. 

In my case at least, the term party girl was really just a euphemism for “functioning alcoholic who makes us all feel better about our own drinking”. And when that is no longer the case, it really is time to hang up the party shoes. Burn them, even. I am all partied out, an anti-social caterpillar. My idea of a good time involves an early night and an Elizabeth Jane Howard novel, not standing on sore feet listening to someone I barely know repeat something they told me 45 minutes before. 

From around mid-October onwards, I live in fear of party season, because it means I am probably going to have to leave the house after it gets dark and talk to people without any assistance whatsoever from alcohol. Who wants to go to something that starts at 8pm, when by this point, you could have taken off your make-up and got into your pyjamas? Anyway, if there was one good thing about lockdowns, then it was that they legitimised being anti-social. They turned it into an art form, if you will. Oh how I miss those days when the only people allowed to throw parties were in government! 

So here we are, party season upon us, and I could not be more miserable about it. Or at least, I thought that this was going to be the case, until this year’s batch of invitations started to trickle in. The first one came from my friend Sarah, who throws an annual bash bang in the middle of November to kick off Christmas. Champagne, mistletoe, her husband dressed up as Santa, the works. Not this year. Instead, she has decided she wants to go to the theatre with a few close friends, and meet before for dinner at FIVE PM. Yes, you read that right: five o’clock in the evening. Seventeen hundred hours. This is not a drill. 

I called her immediately, to check that she was feeling alright. 

“The thing is, Bryony,” she began, “I’m 55. I’d rather spend the money on a holiday. Also, do you know how expensive taxis home cost nowadays? Much better that everything is finished by 10pm and we can all pile on to the last train. Or, even better and far less stressful, the second to last train.”

In the words of everyone on Instagram: I felt seen. Can you imagine my joy, then, when my friend Louise announced that she would be having a 40th birthday party that started at half past five in the evening. Louise has two young children and wanted them to be at the party, too. So she got everyone to her house last weekend, lit the fire pit in the garden, and we stood there in the dark roasting marshmallows and dancing to Taylor Swift and we were all tucked up in bed by 11pm and raring to go the next morning, which is useful when you have to spend Sunday mornings standing on the side of a football pitch in south London watching your child pretend to be Chloe Kelly. 

“It was the best party I’ve ever been to,” I texted the next day from the side of the common, “and I once went to a party at Elton John’s house.”

“I bet Elton didn’t offer you a mug of peppermint tea, either,” replied Louise. 

She was right. He didn’t. 

If two is a coincidence, then three is a trend. So I let out a squeal when a colleague told me she was throwing a small festive soiree next month that would start at 5.45pm.

“That’s very specific,” I said. 

“I did that on purpose,” she nodded, “It’s so specific that I’m sort of hoping nobody will actually come.”

Could this be the start of something? Has the pandemic turned us not just into a nation of homeworkers, but also a nation of party-poopers? Has Brexit allowed us, finally, to accept the fact that we are not European, and we do not function well on dinners that start after 7.30pm? Have we realised that while it’s lovely to see our friends, it’s even lovelier to be in our own beds under freshly cleaned sheets at 9.30 on a Friday night? I really do hope so.

And while 5pm might not be a particularly helpful time to throw a party during the week – unless of course you are a 10 year old – I can’t see any problems at the weekend, especially in the winter. After all, by 5pm it’s already been dark for a couple of hours and feels like the middle of the night, plus it enables you to be social while also being home in time to marvel at Claudia Winkleman’s fringe/Angela Scanlan’s rumba. And you never know – if it catches on, I might even consider becoming a party girl again. You can send all invites with 5pm start times to the usual email address. I promise you, the RSVP will be a resounding yes.