Shed your skin and let's get started

Here we are, it's early on a Sunday afternoon and the day has a slightly unreal feel to it.  A lot of my life often has a slightly unreal feel to it, stemming from how often I fall asleep when travelling -- that time just after waking up always feels slightly drained of colour, and still a little like a dream.  This way, most of the motorway service stations and petrol stations in the world feel like a dream -- unless I've been the one driving.  Train station almost certainly feel this way.  I don't quite know why this morning does, but I drank so much yesterday I might not be completely straight yet.

Because it was my birthday earlier in the week, I arranged to meet friends in London for a few civilised drinks yesterday, among the Shoreditch elite.  The bar I'd chosen, since I have come to consider it as my spiritual home, was promising to get busy -- since Saturday was a big day for sport, marking the start of the 6 Nations rugby tournament (with England playing Wales, and Ireland playing Italy), as well as a few premier league football games, but when the girl and I arrived shortly after 2 it was still just getting going. 

We were joined before too long by the girl's friend Sara, who is very lovely and someone I consider a friend in her own right these days rather than just one of the girl's mates.  We toasted my birthday and settled ourselves in on some big sofas, content to spend the rest of the day in good company.  And the company kept getting better, when guest of honour Conor, of radiogael.blogspot.com joined us.  I'm a big believer in making internet friends into real life friends -- as evidenced by the fact I will have been dating a fellow blogger for two years this year, and have met many other amazing and brilliant bloggers over recent years. 

I'm pleased to report that Conor is every bit as smart, funny and interesting in real life as he is on his highly-readable blog, and as is often the way it didn't feel like the first time we'd met.

As the day wore on and the bar filled up, Sara had to leave to prepare her flat for a party she was throwing that evening, but in her place we were shortly joined by the charismatic China Blue who was having a bad enough day, even before the general disarray of the London Underground.  I'd like to think that her day was improved by joining us, since I know that ours certainly was that much brighter for it.

As the rugby games finished and the afternoon turned into evening, we headed out into the night in search of food -- and luckily for us found it, with little fuss or hassle, in a much smarter city-types bar close to the station.  Sara had invited us to her house party that night, so we'd collectively agreed that a break from the drinks and some food would be in order before we were to set off to join the great and good of Notting Hill.

China Blue joined us for dinner, but decided she'd prefer to head home than to party into the night in Notting Hill -- so the three of us (the girl, Conor and myself) caught the tube out into the Notting Hill night, to what seemed like a very trendy party thrown by Sara and her flatmate. 

These parties always amuse me, since Sara is Australian (which might go without saying, since she's one of the girl's oldest friends) and her flatmate is South African.  The latter I hadn't even known until that day, when the more-perceptive Conor had noticed it immediately upon talking to her.  The part that amuses me is that other than the standard "how do you know the host" ice-breaker questions, people would always ask me where I was from -- and when I replied that I was English, they'd be surprised and tell me I was the first Englishman they had met that night.  Often the only one at the party.  People would presume I was Australian, like the girl and Sara, or South African like so many of the guests, or last night it was thought I might be Irish, like our good friend Conor.   My English accent was foreign and difficult to understand in the noisy party atmosphere.

I feel decidedly less travelled at these parties, but it was a lot of fun -- even if we didn't stay too late.  The three of us were worse for wear after the afternoon, but still a lot better than some of the party's guests, and together we caught a bus to guide us home -- sitting on the top deck, right at the front, we could spy on all the people out in the city...

And so here we are, the girl and I having a lazy Sunday at home with a couple of cats who are craving attention after being left alone all day yesterday.  I feel very lucky today, and the working week feels thankfully a long way off.