Finishing the Thesis

In the morning I woke up in Letchworth, and realised I had about a million missed e-mails and calls from the Young Dutchman.  I felt a bit badly about that, but then also a bit resentful too...  Why does he always need me to double-check and proof-read everything?  So in some ways, I felt a bit good about staying over the night before and making him do some more of his own work.

I got up, got dressed, had some juice with the Tall South African, and he drove me to the train station, which happened to be right on his way to work.  I was somewhat surprised, as I'd woken up with the sun at 7 AM, and so found myself all of the way back in London by 9.  Who knew mornings could be like this?  We even had time to stop at the post office on our way into work!

The Tall South African texted me quite a bit on my train journey home, and once I was at home, I even went to Body Pump at my gym.  Came home and tried to focus on doing some work, but also cleaning my flat, since the Tall South African was coming down to stay with me on Wednesday, and the place was pretty much a tip.

I also had agreed to a ridiculously short deadline on a work project, which then makes me wonder why I didn't spend more time working on that as well.  So on Tuesday, I found myself staying up ridiculously late, doing my own work and also staying on Skype with the Young Dutchman as he worked to finish his thesis.  I did quite a bit of proof-reading and discovered quite a few errors...who knows how many more I could have caught if I were actually alert?

Finally though at 5 AM I just literally couldn't stay awake any longer, and so headed to bed for two hours.  Only two, alas, as I had to be up again to go to physio in the morning.  Why do I always manage to schedule these things so poorly?

Yet, I got the deck reviewed with another woman at work and turned in by the afternoon, at which point I found myself frantically cleaning so that the flat would be in decent shape by the time the Tall South African arrived.  I normally look forward to seeing him and get annoyed when he's late, but when he called to say he wouldn't arrive until 8 PM, I couldn't have been more grateful.  (Silly boy also kept calling to keep me informed on his progress and ask for fashion advice.  I've never known a boy more hung up on his looks or insecure about them!)

When he arrived, we both just didn't quite feel like going out yet, wanting some time to catch up, just the two of us, so I suggested we split the bottle of champagne in my fridge.  There's always a reason one should keep champagne around, chilling just in case...

We had a good time, talking and catching up, until finally we couldn't deny that we needed to go out to the Lansdowne and join everyone.

Once there, we joined the Young Dutchman, his brother, David, Jesse, Lotte's fiancee, Kellogg Boy's girlfriend and Sophie for drinks.  I rather left the Tall South African to his own devices, seeing him happily chatting with Jesse and Lotte's fiancee, while I chatted to David and the Young Dutchman's brother for a while.  In fact, when the two of then switched to drinking whiskey, I absolutely fell in love with the smell, and was so grateful when David bought one for me.  A few people commented on me being a girl, drinking whiskey, but I truly like the stuff.  It was delicious, and as I sipped it slowly, actually a good choice for the evening...

Kellogg Boy's girlfriend asked me what was going on with the Tall South African, and I explained that it was a bit of a complicated history, but nothing really there now.  At which point she then asked me why I'd never gotten together with Canadian Balliol Guy, saying, "You two would make such beautiful babies!"

I was a bit taken aback, not quite sure how to respond to that one, other than to note that it's not like I could ever have a casual fling with Canadian Balliol Guy (he's too important to the three musketeers), and also he, unlike the Young Dutchman and Kellogg Boy, had actually been up in Oxford for most of the year.  Plus (although I didn't mention this), when I first met him he'd been smoking, and there was just no way I was ever going to go to that.  So at least it seemed to reassure her when I told her that we'll see what happens in the next year, and promised her that I was very fond of him.  But who knows?

Finally I ended up just chatting and talking and drinking with Sophie and the Tall South African, as our original plans to leave at a reasonable hour were thwarted by people reminding us that the trains were running late for the Olympics.  We didn't make it home until 1:45 AM, but took the Tube the whole way.  I love the trains running late for the Olympics!