Helen's Organ Party

My friend Helen (who I went to Berlin with) was having a party this evening to celebrate the fact that she'd moved into a new flat (after breaking up with her live-in boyfriend), and that she'd bought an organ (yes, the kind that are in churches) off of eBay and had moved it into her flat. I had to see this (who on earth gets an organ off of eBay for £50 and moves it into a one-bedroom flat in London?) so I was attending her flat-warming party in this evening.

The Young Dutchman had been up in Oxford last night (leaving me to an exciting evening of doing late-night conference calls by myself), but needed to stop back in at my flat to find his Oyster card. Turns out he must have left it in Oxford, but it was good to see him and do some little chit-chat before heading out for our respective evenings. He was able to comment on whether my skirt was too short (no), and amuse me for a bit with stories from Oxford as we walked to the Tube.

I got totally lost getting to the party, as I attempted to follow my iPhone taking me to the postcode of Helen's address, which ended up putting me nowhere near where she actually lived. But thankfully she is such a loud person, that when I got myself re-sorted and on the path to where she lives, I was able to find her house just by listening for her voice (yes, out on the street). Arrived and was warmly greeted, had a G&T thrust into my hand, and found myself quickly in conversation with lots of academic types (as Helen herself has a PhD from Cambridge in physics).

I saw the organ, which indeed fit neatly into a tiny space in her flat, although it was a mystery to most of us how on earth it fit. Which of course led to a huge number of double-entendre jokes as we talked about the organ. "How on earth did you fit that organ in? It's so big!" "Did the organ have to use the back entrance?" "You're so lucky that the organ fit into that slot so perfectly!" We were all cracking up all over ourselves.

For entertainment, Helen had arranged to have an apple-bobbing contest, although it didn't work too well, as there wasn't quite enough space for two people to get their heads into the bucket at the same time. Still, it was neat that she had an entire garden for apple-bobbing, which was one of the more unusual entertainments of any party I've ever been to!

As well, later on in the evening she pulled out her accordion and passed out song sheets, and we found ourselves singing along to German drinking songs like "Bier Hier" and Irish ones like "Wild Rover". (I loved that one, of course!) Once we ran out of songs on the song sheet, Helen's boyfriend John wrote out the lyrics to "Bella Ciao", which I know from actually having it on my iTunes. He was hugely impressed that I knew the words to Bella Ciao, and was able to sing along with the group as we rattled out that one.

Finally, when it was nearly midnight, I made my excuses, and Helen saw me to the door. I mentioned that I'd had a lovely time chatting to a biology teacher who was a colleague of hers, and thought he was very nice. To which she replied, "Oooh, lovely! He's bi-sexual though, would you have a problem with that?" Of all the things she could have possibly said, that was definitely the last thing I anticipated. Bi-sexual? I replied honestly, that I'd never even thought about it. Although I was mulling it on the way home...

My timing with the Young Dutchman turned out to be perfect, and we ran into each other right on the street outside the Tube station by my house. And so we walked home together, and I discussed the surprising quandary I had discovered myself in. And realising that although it made me wonder if I were somehow secretly biased, I sort of did have a problem being with a guy who was bisexual. Thanks, but I'd much prefer to be with a guy who was straight-up into girls.

The Young Dutchman, being Dutch, of course didn't have a problem with the idea, and told me I was being too conservative. Perhaps I am, but it still was my gut reaction. So we got ready for bed together, batting back and forth ideas about what was acceptable bedroom practice with those of the opposite sex. Very funny conversation, and we were laughing quite a bit, before exhaustion overtook us and we fell off to sleep.