I got out of the shower to find him on the phone with some mutual friends of ours, who we were apparently going to join for brunch. (Or it turned out to just be lunch, since it was 1 PM by the time we got there!) I then found I'd missed a 10 AM text from the Radiologist, asking if I was free for breakfast. Ooops! Still, managed to get her on the phone to apologize, and was grateful at least that I'd seen her the night before!
Once we got ourselves sorted, we made it to the restaurant for lunch (a half-hour late), and had a very nice lunch with the mutual friend. She pestered me to get back to playing squash with her boyfriend, as apparently he's been looking quite tubby as of late. To be honest, I could use the exercise too, so I promised I would indeed drag him out on the courts.
After lunch, the Young Dutchman had to go back to the Lansdowne to pick up his keys, as he'd lost them in a couch there last night. (I raised an eyebrow at that one, as it takes a fair bit of exertion I'd think, to lose your keys out of your pocket while just sitting on a couch. But I didn't comment...) He wanted us all to go for a bike ride through Hyde Park to the Lansdowne, but I'm terrified of cycling in London, even on Boris Bikes. I figured that particularly, my first experience of biking in a long time should not be on a busy London street. So with many hugs, I wished the two of them off, and went back to mine, which somehow seemed just a bit sadder and emptier with him gone.
So I was glad when my friend Cookie texted to say she was at loose ends, so perhaps did I want to meet up for a drink? We settled on 8:30 PM in Clapham Junction, where hopefully our friend Sweedy would be joining us too.
Figuring that it was only a night out with the girls, I dressed down a bit, but after seeing Cookie looking stunning in a black dress, realised that I'd made a mis-step. Even though it was only drinks out with the girls, it WAS drinks out in Clapham, after all...
We settled on a chic little cocktail bar as our first stop of the evening, where we got some fancy-pants cocktails (only in London can £8 seem like a reasonable price for a drink), and sat around low tables catching up with each other while we waited for Sweedy to join us.
At around 11 PM as the first bar started to turn into a nightclub (bouncers showed up and the music got louder), we abandon our spot to head for somewhere hopefully quieter. We found another bar that was still rather noisy and crowded, but at least slightly less so.
In the end, we consumed three bottles of wine between the three of us, and had a very funny conversation about the awkward situations we've found ourselves in when there's no man around to realise it's his job to pour the wine. Funny how proper wine-pouring etiquette plays such an important role in our lives!
I adore Cookie's fiancée for this reason, as he's a military guy who never let's a girl be without a full wine glass. The funniest part of the evening came when this guy approached the three of us and started hitting on Cookie, the one of us who was engaged. She kept trying to flash her ring at him, but he just wasn't picking up on it, so finally she had to politely turn him down and point out the ring to this oblivious guy. We had quite a laugh at that, pointed out his error, and then Cookie said she might tell her fiancee that men were still hitting in her in bars...
It was a good night, even if the crowd around us seemed a bit young, and the music too loud. It was just such fun to have a night out with only the girls for once... Unfortunately, it had been so much fun that when we got kicked out of the bar at 12:30 AM, I had well and truly missed my last train that had gone at 11:30. Hence, three nightbuses were required to get me back to where I should be. In Hammersmith, I stopped and grabbed a burger from McDonald's, and then snapped a photo of the fit guy in a kilt standing in the McDonald's. Only in London does that seem like a normal sight!
Finally got sick of waiting for the last bus to get me the end of the way home, and so just walked the last 20 minutes of the journey home. Probably between the burgers and the walk, it was a good thing, as it saved my head from the inevitable hangover that bottle of wine would have produced!
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