Grouse Dinner

In the morning, despite my late night out at the Caledonian Club the night before, I dragged myself up when my alarm went off, because I knew my friend Maria was coming! You see, Maria is a friend of mine from my Balliol days, who decided that an Oxford DPhil just wasn't quite challenging enough, so she decided to go to Harvard Law School as a bit of a break from her DPhil. Now she's finished up her law degree and was coming back to see her supervisor about finishing up that DPhil. Oh, and she'd gotten engaged in the intervening time. How crazy!

When Maria called to say she was downstairs outside my flat however, I was surprised to arrive at the front door and discover nobody there. Ran back upstairs to get my phone, and it turns out she was at the wrong house, having mis-remembered the number! So got her to come a few doors down and greeted her with a huge hug, it was so great to see her again!

We had a little bit of time to chat and catch up before we were due to meet a whole group of friends for lunch at the Windsor Castle, one of my favourite pubs. So we walked there (catching a bus for part of the way to make up time, as we'd left a bit late), and discovered Gregorie, a guy from Balliol I hadn't seen in ages, standing outside complaining the place was closed. Although the place opened at noon, and we were still a few minutes early. So we waited a bit more, and then walked in, and discovered open doors everywhere, making me wonder how much Gregorie had checked before declaring that the place was closed!

We sat chatting for a bit, and then I got the shock of my life when Tim came up and said hello! As I sputtered in disbelief, asking, "Aren't you supposed to be in Melbourne?" he laughed about how he'd flown in just for lunch... Not really, he had a conference to go to in Italy, and decided to visit England whilst he was over in Europe. But how perfect that he managed to meet everyone for lunch, eh? And of course, he was delighted to have been able to surprise the heck out of me!!

I got another great surprise when Nikola showed up as well, so we all had a fun time just chatting and catching up, the old crowd all together again. I had originally been intending to view a flat at 3 PM, but I was having such a good time that I texted to cancel, so I could keep hanging out with everyone. Maria had to leave us at around 2:30 PM to try and squeeze in a few other appointments with friends, but decided to meet all of the guys again for dinner that evening. Which made me relieved, as then I didn't have to worry about Maria being without evening plans whilst I was out at the Grouse Dinner at the O&C.

The guys then decided it didn't make much sense to go home when they all needed to be back out in central London in just a few hours, and it would have been a nightmare trying to travel anyway, given that the Pope was in London today and nearly all central transport was shut down. So didn't it make sense to just stay at the pub and have another pint?

I had a great time hanging out with them and continuing our afternoon discourse, but at 5 PM when they all decided to change venues and walk downhill to the Churchill Arms, I figured it was time for me to go home and get ready for dinner. I have to admit I was feeling a bit woozy trying to do up my hair, but I luckily just set some curls, sprayed the heck out of them, and then just randomly pinned then in place wherever they looked nice. I'll have to see if some other people's pictures came out to see if the effect worked.

Once I got to the club I saw a few people standing around, not quite sure if it was time for the champagne reception to begin, so I led the charge upstairs and got everybody going. Seriously, sometimes you just need to be the first one!

I quickly spotted Carolyn, as well as Andrei and Cornelia, so I got them into conversation, all while keeping an eye out for Florie, who I'd invited as my guest. I spotted S, the chap I'd been talking to the night before, but across the room I realised that he was with a girl who was being super-flirty with him, so I decided not to interrupt. In the end, the only time we said hello all evening was right as the crowds shifted when we headed downstairs into dinner.

At dinner, I found the chap to my right to be exceptionally dull, an overweight guy from Northern Ireland, and from Fitzwilliam College at that. (It's a Cambridge thing, you really do judge people by their colleges). Did my best to make some conversation with him, but it was rough going. Particularly after the main course when they brought out finger bowls and put them between everyone's places. (We were going to be eating grouse, a very small bird where it can be difficult to get the meat off the bones, so it was an implicit suggestion that eating with one's hands would be acceptable, and they'd brought out the water to wash with in advance). He then grabbed his and put it right in front of him, as though it were what he was about to eat. As he stared at the warm water with a slice of lemon floating in it, and then began to pick it up (was he going to drink it?) I quickly said, "Oh, I don't think we need the finger bowls quite yet, don't you think?" He looked up with a snort, as though I'd startled him out of some trance, and put the bowl back down in front of him. Gently I suggested, "Why don't you move that to the side so they have room to put your plate?" (i.e. "Put it back where you found it!") I really have no idea what on earth he was doing with that finger bowl, but I was a bit distressed to think that he might have been considering drinking out of it!

They brought out the grouse, which smelled a bit weird, and apparently it's tradition to leave the bird mostly intact, so I was slightly grossed out by the tiny feet curled up on the plate. I gamely attacked it as best I could, but still left a distressing amount on the plate at the end of the course. At least I did better than my dining companion, who insisted the staff take the plate away again nearly as soon as they had brought it out, prompting concerned queries from all of the staff about what they'd done wrong. Seriously, I was not sure what was up with this guy, sending his dinner back without even tasting it!

Despite my dull dining companion, I did get some entertainment though when I received a text message in the middle of dinner (I was being sneaky and checking my phone for word from my houseguest, Maria, who needed to stop by the club and get my keys).

Except the message was not from my houseguest, it was from an Australian guy I had met the night before at the Caledonian Club. I hadn't taken much note of him at the time because I assumed he was with another girl at the drinks, but was surprised when he asked for my contact info at the end of the night. The message was so long it took me ages to figure out who it was from, because it came in three (3!) parts. He wrote:

"Hi Adrian, it was lovely meeting you at the Caley Club last night. I'm afraid I went off the drunk cliff at some point so apologies for my chat being completely rank. I'm swotting up by reading this Delusions of Gender book so there's a chance I may become equipped to meet you for a coffee and show you my subcortical intelligence circuits aren't all that chud really. Speak soon! B"

Okay, I think that's the longest and most interesting text I've ever received. And most surprising. Was I mistaken that he was Megan's boyfriend? Or is he just being friendly and truly found our chat so interesting that he wants to continue the conversation? (I will admit he was super-nice and quite cute, but I just didn't even think about him that way because I assumed he was with someone else). Still, I couldn't text him back right then in the middle of dinner, so I just had to leave it.

I will admit to not wanting to linger long at the table with my dull dining companion, and so I retreated to the bar for after-dinner drinks with Florie. She very graciously got me a glass of wine, and then I tried my best to start introducing her around, although the poor girl seemed a bit lost amidst the crowds. I felt my phone go off, and I found myself racing out of the bar to go to the phone booth to answer calls (the only place in the club one is allowed to check your phone). It turned out that the call was from Maria and Rick, and they were waiting at the front of the club (I can only hope they weren't waiting long!) So I went down to meet them and assured Maria if I could have 10 minutes to say good-bye to everyone, I'd be ready to go. Yet Maria wouldn't hear of it, and insisted on simply taking my keys, and asking for the password to the internet at home. (Thank goodness I know it off the top of my head!) So I sent her off to go back to my flat, and then returned to the party.

I found myself briefly chatting with JS, who weirdly almost seemed to have been avoiding me earlier in the evening as he circulated taking photos (he always takes on the role of official photographer at these events), and then suddenly approached and insisted on getting photos of the two of us together, and then suddenly asking, "Do you think we look like a couple? We do look like a couple in these photos, don't we?" Oh no, I have no idea what on earth is going on in that boy's head, but I hope it doesn't lead to anything awkward. I mean, I adore JS, he's a stellar guy, but he's just.....not for me.

Still, I quickly got out of that one when I ended up chatting very briefly to a cute boy who had somehow gotten involved in Doro's entourage. Doro then gave a signal that we should all head for the terrace, but you could tell the boy didn't quite want to stop talking to me when he'd only just started. So I solved the problem by following Doro and a few others up to the terrace, where I found myself on a bench with a few boys, including CS, a nice enough chap I know through Doro. I was so chilly up there I wouldn't have minded a bit of a snuggle, but CS didn't seem up for it. No idea what CS's deal is, but I think we're always just going to be friends... There were quite a few cute boys up on the terrace however, making me wonder where on earth they all came from, and that I'd had a bit more time to talk to them!

One of them even got the brilliant idea that we should all have cigars, so I found myself indulging in one of my favourite pleasures in life, a good, rich, cigar. I always think that's just about the most heavenly way to end an evening, sitting with the crowds, drinking port and smoking cigars up on that terrace. It's a little glimpse of what heaven must be like.

Yet, at 12:30 AM (two hours after I'd given my keys to Maria) I felt it was just too late, and I really needed to get home and attend to my houseguest. So I did my best to race through some good-byes in the bar, and found myself chatting with R who suddenly discovered I speak German. So we left together, chatting entirely in German (how on earth my booze-addled brain kept up, I don't know, but I guess was at least a reassuring sign I hadn't had too much to drink if I could still speak a foreign language reasonably fluently).

We ended up waiting quite a bit for cabs, and so then R graciously let me have the first cab (although I don't think the driver wanted to go where she lived, he seemed so much more enthusiastic when I gave my address. It was an expensive cab trip in the end, I don't know what was wrong with that cab, as even to the end of my street (should be a £13-14 trip), it turned into a £16-and-change fare, and when I asked for £3, he only gave me two, so it cost me £18 just to get to the bottom of my street. Not really cool, I shall have to remember to not take cabs like that one again in the future!

When I got home, Maria was still awake (although how could she go to bed? I hadn't told her where the sheets were), although thankfully Emily wasn't home yet either, so we could stay up chatting for a bit without worrying about disturbing anyone. Interestingly, her take on the silly boy who hasn't called me back was that he didn't sound very promising, and instead was quite keen on this boy B who had texted me during dinner. It's always interesting to get the opinions of my friends. Finally though, I think the busy day caught up with us, and it was time to head to bed!