Club Crawl

Tonight was the Inter-Club crawl, an event I had heard much about but had failed to manage to attend for the past two years. So I was glad to finally get a chance tonight to check out this epic event...

We began the evening at the Royal Overseas League, where, although the heat wave is now over, it was quite a warm evening in a crowded room. I started the evening chatting to Gordon (old favourite, always interesting to chat to), saw my friend Fiona (a girl who was in my sorority at undergrad who has just moved here), and then took the opportunity to start introducing her around to people.

After a few glasses of wine, it was time to move on to the next location. As I was leaving, I ran into the Wild Welshman at the door, and so went down the stairs and out of the club with him. Ever the gentleman, he offered me his arm, which in my high heels I was quite grateful for. (Something that will always endear me to Englishmen more than Americans, as they know when a lady needs a steadying strong arm at their side).

Funny though, as I'm not sure if it's because he's taken to wearing a mustache these days (instead of a full beard) or what, but the attraction is really gone. There's just something distinctly unattractive about mustaches on anyone other than Burt Reynolds or Tom Selleck. Still, he's a dear friend who always seems delighted to see me, so it was good to get to chat with him as we walked. Yet I had no qualms about leaving him to go chat and talk to other people once we arrived at the next club, the Army & Navy Club.

I found myself on a table in between a guy from the Army & Navy Club and the Lansdowne Club, who were very nice (if not very exciting), but fine enough companions for dinner. Too much I noticed myself dominating the table's conversation, telling funny stories and getting everyone to laugh. I suppose if they were all entertained, it's fine to be the ham and the centre of attention, but I do realise it's a bad habit to so thoroughly monopolize the conversation.

Dinner was a buffet curry, which was fine given how inexpensive the whole evening was. And there was some good fruit and chocolate cake for dessert, so on the whole I was pretty happy.

Thinking I'd be clever, I ran up to the ladies loo before everyone left their tables, but when I came out I discovered that I'd stayed just long enough for everyone to leave! Two other girls had the same issue however, and so using our iPhones (how on earth did we ever live without them?) we found our way to the next club, the National Liberal Club.

The library of this place was absolutely stunning, even more impressive than the O&C, which is saying something. It was my favourite place for drinks all evening, as I was just enjoying the atmosphere so much.

I then also found myself talking to a boy that we'll call the Working Class Boy (shown in the photo above), who I don't know what he does, but he's a classic example of a Working Class Boy who made good, as he has a stupid amount of money now, but still speaks as though he comes from the mean streets of South London. Still, he's very nice and seems very fond of me, so I was happy to spend some time chatting with him. I thought he was dating a girl at one point in time, and I'm not sure if that's still going on, but he smokes anyway, so not like anything COULD happen. As a result, who doesn't mind a little harmless flirting with a cute boy who likes to dote attention on you? He was telling me stories about being in Monte Carlo and hanging out with Julian Lennon and Bono, because he's one of those banker boys with too much money (but still surprisingly sweet about it).

We then moved downstairs from the National Liberal Club to the Savage Club, which is an all-male club that's basically a rather large room, where they had a old-timey bass and banjo band playing. I got dragged out on the dancefloor by the Head of Inter-Club who always loves to dance with me but he's soooo bad at it! (As one might remember from the Charity Ball where he had me dancing a few months ago). Not like I'm the worlds best dancer, but if I stay on my toes and follow the guy's lead at least I'm decent. Ah well, it's always nice to have boys ask you to dance, right?

Spent the rest of the evening chatting with lots of people, flirting with the Working Class Boy, and drinking lots if water (so much that the bartenders jokingly threatened to cut me off, I'd had so much!) It was such a small room and so crowded with so many people, that I was really dying!

Finally when my feet were truly killing me in my heels, I said my goodbyes to everyone (a process that takes at least a half-hour), refused all entreaties to stay for the after-party, and found myself kissed repeatedly by a young Scotsman who has a bit of a crush in me (and I'll admit he's not bad-looking either). Although I suppose it tells you how late and drunken the evening was, in that after giving me about 10 kisses on each cheek, he just kissed me full on the mouth and then whispered in my ear, "Don't go! I'm going to miss you and your massive bosom so much!!", which of course then just totally cracked me up and sent me into fits of laughter. Hey, it's what nature gave me... Too bad he's so young (and would likely gossip), as otherwise he'd make for a very good playmate!

Of course at this point I had stayed at the party just long enough to miss the last train home, so leaving 30 minutes later that seemed particularly pointless. Perhaps I should have stayed longer to make it worth it? And then it started raining too, but I had no umbrella because I sacrificed the space in my bag for a pair of flats instead. But my feet hurt in my heels so much at the end of the night that I would gladly get wet for the bliss that my feet felt to be in flats!

Finally, in my flats I survived the night bus home (the booze bus!), although my feet felt so good to finally be in flats, I swear I could have walked home. But overall a great night, and I finally tumbled into bed at 2 AM on a school night!