Moving Sara

I totally missed Zhan leaving in the morning, but like a good houseguest, he'd folded up all of the linens, leaving no other sign of his recent stay, and had slipped a note under my door thanking me for my hospitality. There's a reason that I was willing to bring him home at the last minute, as he's such an easy guest!

I managed to get myself up and out to Body Pump, but then didn't have time for a shower before it was time to head out and help Sara move.

I guess I was still in a daze from the gym (and not having gotten much sleep the night before), in that I totally missed my stop on the Overground, and only noticed that Imperial Wharf, the stop I was supposed to get out at, was passing me by just as the doors were closing. Ooops! So I made it back in the opposite direction 10 minutes later, this time paying sufficient attention to notice when it was my stop!

I met up with Rocky at the Streetvan, and without too much difficulty we managed to get it going and over to Sara's place. Although I was intrigued by the idea of Streetcar, we drove that van so close to the edge of other cars down some very narrow streets, that I'm not sure that driving in London is ever for me!

Luckily Sara was all ready to go, so we made relatively short work of moving all of the boxes into the van. (It probably helped that there were five of us as well!) We then drove the van over to Sara's new place, and then once again moved all of the boxes into her place. Sara seemed somewhat stressed throughout the whole ordeal, so we tried to forgive her occasional snappishness (obviously brought on by stress) and I must say that at times she realised she must be being a bit short and broke back into laughter at things we did... Poor girl, as moving is never fun!

I'd told my friend M that I would try and make it out to a barbecue that some of her friends were hosting, even as I didn't relish the idea of having to travel all of the way out to Mile End. So you can imagine my surprise when I got a text from her telling me not to worry about coming out, as people were leaving the BBQ already at 6 PM, even though the whole thing had only started at 4 PM! Alas, I feel a bit bad for those hosts!!

So instead I stayed with the moving crew, as Sara bought us all dinner. Given that I was STARVING by this point, this was a most welcome development. Mostly it was just a nice conversation about one of the guys' upcoming wedding in India, which sounds like it will be absolutely insane, with 1,000 people in attendance. When he even started talking about what he was supposed to wear based on what caste he was from, I realised that there is soooooo much I don't understand about world cultures. But one more reason I love living in London, as this is the place where they all meet.

Finally, battling exhaustion, I made my way back home, grateful for the bus that went pretty much from my friend Sara's new place to mine. Got a text from M as I got back to my place, hoping that I wasn't upset about the cancelled BBQ. Funny that she'd be worrying about ME being upset, given that I was the one who was a flake and didn't manage to show up on time in the first place! Still, I wasn't entirely surprised that M would be thinking I was upset, as such is the nature of clingy people. Given that this was about the 15th call from M in the past 24 hours, I definitely think she qualifies on that front. And it's such a pity, because M is SUCH a lovely person, but she sabotages nearly all of her relationships by being so clingy. I think our friendship survives only because I'm able to set such clear limits on the time time we spent together. You feel bad, but at some point you need to cut these people off for their own good. How I wish I could just shake her and tell her that boyfriends would like her a lot more if she didn't cling so much! Ah well, I'm sure there are plenty of things my friends could tell me I could improve on too. We all have our flaws, we just have to hope we can find people who can deal with them...

Hence, into bed, and hoping for some sleep!