Dinner with Easy Rider

After an exhausting day (attempting to work after surviving a red-eye flight with no sleep is always a challenge), I changed to go out for dinner that evening with my friend Easy Rider.

I met Easy Rider through my friend Jess, who I'd just been in Chicago at the wedding with. Jess had come to work in London at her company's London office for a week, and invited me out for drinks with her co-workers one night. That night I met Easy Rider, and invited her along to the hash. After that, Easy Rider started running with my hash regularly, and we became fast friends.

Through the hash, Easy Rider then actually met the man who is now her partner, and they moved together to Edinburgh last year. I've gone up to Edinburgh to visit them several times, but also Easy Rider comes down to London occasionally on business trips, and we always make a point to meet up then.

Hence, while Monday wasn't the best day for me given that I was absolutely exhausted from my red-eye flight, given that it was my only chance to see Easy Rider, I figured I'd better just drink lots of caffiene and stay awake for dinner!

We went out to one of Easy Rider's favourite restaurants in London, St. John, this place that apparently makes a big deal out of using unusual cuts of meat and all parts of the animal, for what they call "nose to tail" cooking. I had rarebit and rabbit, while Easy Rider had bone marrow, and we enjoyed our meals quite thoroughly.

But most of all, you know those really good dinners with friends, where you have such a good time that you talk and laugh endlessly all throughout the meal, and then afterwards you linger over your wine, and then even after the wine is gone you linger over your water glasses? Yes, it was one of those dinners. It's hard even to remember really what we talked about, except that we never seemed to lack for topics, and I'm once again so delighted that I've managed to stay friends with this girl, as she is such good fun to spend time with.

How lucky I am, to have such good friends and such wonderful dinners like that with them. There is nothing quite so great as time spent with old friends.