Navy Boy's Engagement Drinks

The entire group at the engagement party

This morning, as I was lying in bed, I heard my phone buzz at 7:45 AM.  It was my personal trainer.  "There's a Body Pump class in an hour!  Get up and go!  I'll be looking for you there!"

I couldn't believe she'd woken me up, mostly because she'd actually promised to do exactly this yesterday.  So with a yawn, I texted her back:  "See you in an hour."  And then indeed, at the gym this morning, she was there, checking on me, and once I'd finished the class, found me before I could leave and said, "Now how about a 1500 metre row?"  (6:47, btw with 2:16 splits.  We're in a contest at the moment, where she's challenging all of her clients to this.  I've currently apparently got the record, finishing on Friday in 6:11.  I think we can allow for an extra 30 seconds given that I'd just finished an hour-long weight lifting class!)

After I came home, I had originally been planning to go out to watch the England vs. Fiji rugby game with a bunch of people from the running club, but I was just too damn tired, feeling almost like my legs might give out from under me.  So I spent some time cleaning my flat, and just trying to recover some energy before I was due to go out that evening.  

Of course, right before I went out, I got a text from Sweetheart asking what I was up to this evening, and as I was heading into the club, I found myself in conversation with a guy I met a year ago at the Carlton who I haven't really been in touch with since.  Now that was random...

But I was here because I was attending the engagement drinks party of my friend Navy Boy, who had quite suddenly, and without warning, become engaged a few weeks ago.  The story is a really peculiar one, because he'd gotten engaged to a girl he'd been friends with for years, but for the longest time they had both insisted that they were "just friends".  In fact, I know she dated other people, and he had been out with quite a few friends of mine, and even slept with a few.  Yet, he'd always struck me as one of those guys who was eager to get married, and he HAD been friends with this girl for ages.  

Then she went away for six months (they met through the Navy, and she's still in the Navy) on a posting to the Gulf of Iran.  She came back about 4-6 weeks ago, and now here they are, engaged.  It was baffling.  

Yet, lest I wonder that I was somehow a bad correspondent and totally out-of-the-loop, it turns out that all of their other friends were as confused as I was about how this all came about!  The bride-to-be wouldn't give away the story of how they got together, or how he proposed, only to make some throwaway comment that, "Absence does make the heart grow fonder..."  

Navy Boy as well was quite tight-lipped, but did say at one point, "She goes away and THEN finally she changes her mind."  So he always liked her?  It was quite the mystery, to be sure!

I found myself chatting quite a bit to a random friend of both of theirs, this guy Dan, who was very nice and cute, if a bit rough around the edges.  He apparently lived in Portsmouth but also had a flat in Battersea, and I got the impression that he might still be involved with the Navy.  (We were at the Army and Navy Club, after all).  Unfortunately, as much as you could tell he desperately wanted to pay attention to me, he was overly distracted by having to deal with a friend of his (well known to me), who had gotten horribly drunk and was just going around annoying people, moments from being kicked out of the club.  I mean, really, really, really, really drunk.  And so this poor guy was stuck trying to baby-sit his friend while still chat to me, and the drunk friend wouldn't give the poor guy a break!  

Alas, he isn't coming to the wedding, although at the end of the evening when he finally gave up on being able to talk to me, he gave me a kiss on each cheek and implored me to find him on Facebook.  So I did, as I had to give the poor guy some hope!  

The Blonde and the Tall South African arrived three hours late (as per usual, as of course The Blonde can't manage to go anywhere on time), as The Blonde actually went out on a few dates with Navy Boy, and that's how she knows him.  I barely got to talk much to them, although we all did get a lot of mileage out of Thursday's story where they stalked me on my date.  I have to admit, that one is a good story for making people laugh.  

Then, at some point, as we were in the Army and Navy Club, they had the Remembrance Day ceremony that the Queen was at playing on the television, and so we were all roundly shushed around the bar to observe the moment of silence.  They had these red hearts falling from the ceiling at the ceremony over the troops standing at attention, which somehow looked slightly ridiculous to me, all of these red hearts falling on these battle-hardened troops.

Of course, the next problem was that we didn't know when we were allowed to talk again, so we stood there for ages in silence, although when the Queen finally turned around to collect her handbag, we took that as a sign that we could also return to our normal activities and conversations.  

Which, given that it was 11 PM and the party there was quieting down, I took that as a good cue to leave, and headed home.  I guess not every night needs to be a very late one!