It's always the way with me. I spend months on end living a near hermit-like existence in a circular routine of school run - work - home - bedtime, feeling like a person I used to know but have long ago lost touch with when out of the blue someone in what I've long realised is my AMAZING circle of friends decides to roll up their sleeves and scoop me out of the fishtank. This happened twice this week. I'd sadly had to blow a friend out at the weekend because I'd been so freaking ill with what I'm convinced was dysentery and feeling more than a little sorry for myself when I get a text message on Wednesday from said person asking if I'd like to meet up for a swift one at the local pub.
I can't tell you the last time I was this spontaneous, but I didn't need to be told twice. In one fluid movement I pretty much got home, stepped out of the corporate and into the hippie - bit of spritz and lip gloss and off I swept (my thanks to The Silverback for the short notice babysitting). I bounced on the balls of my trainers down to The Elgin, a pub near Maida Vale tube that has undergone what I call 'ponsification'. What was once a perfectly charming little alehouse is now a purple lizard lounge with poker tables and chandeliers. Whatever! dolls - the beer taste the freaking same.
Man, do I ever love nights like this though. Midweek usually produces a wily crowd and tonight did not disappoint. Even without the uplifting conversation that ranged from the mystical world of spirit to saucy holidays in France, we wouldn't have been bored. Then...enter the Lebanese duo - the Christian and the Muslim - one, an eternal kid whose earliest childhood memory is seeing a naked woman for the first time on a family holiday in Mallorca as a boy and the other quite simply the angriest mofo I've ever met. I must admit, I kind of started tuning the them out round about the third vodka tonic. All good clean fun I suppose.
Then the following night I was cajoled out, this time to a private club with the PR girls who only drink with 'the beautiful people' These girls would rather literally DIE than drink at a place like The Elgin. Course the danger with these girls is that like it or not conversation always turns to shop talk. When the Blackberries come out, it's definitely time to leave. All is forgiven though, always - they are a life source and worry, worry, worry for my sanity. Let's face it someone has to, cos lord knows I walk a fine line some days.
Plus, you know, they got the good cocktails.
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