Friday Fire

This is definitely the song for today! Myself and Limerick girl are going out tonight and tomorrow night – oh yes, the crayons and sparkles will be in hand for us to do a bit of town painting! Oh I love ‘Friday Feelings’! The whole anticipation keeps me going right throughout the hours at my desk before I can rush home and get into that LBD, throw on the DG leather jacket, climb into my 5inch Kurt Geigers and.. well.. who knows!

This song also came to mind as I was having an online chat with an old friend. We met in South Africa and had an absolute blast out on the piss in Cape Town for.. oh.. what was it? 1 week? 2? Just how many times did you change your flight home?! And she’s at the really exciting stage of having just met a new guy – oh the excitment! And if anyone can party, it’s her. Hehe… we’ll definitely have to be in the same country, same pub again soon, I should start putting energy aside for that weekend now! 

So, this is for Anja – go get him Tiger!

Not Always Black and White

OK, it’s been niggling at me for over a week now. That little voice in the back of my mind, reminding me that a very good friend of mine told me straight out that he ‘didn’t like McSmile and in fact didn’t think him good enough for me’. The fact that he told me his wife agreed, confirmed a double whammy power blow that has been etching away at my decidedly bruised ego.

I should also say that I’m perhaps a bit guilty of only relaying the times when McSmile has pissed me off over certain things to this couple. It can be downright excruciating and eyeroll inducing to have someone stand beside you, squealing with delight at the fact that their new boyfriend even breathes on his own, so I tend to shy from mentioning the good side to McSmile, not wanting to sound like a gushing buffoon – if you remember that scene in ‘Friends’ when Chandler walks out of the apartment, Monica is standing all wide eyed and smiley in the kitchen watching him leave and then Phoebe stands right beside Monica, leaning her head to one side an says in a really girlie voice ‘My boyfriend is so dreamy’, you’ll know what I mean!

But, the thing is, I’m now angry that these good friends of mine have a very tainted view of McSmile and being perfectly honest, I doubt there’s anything I could ever do to change their minds. And this makes me sad. But I’m also very happy today as I had such a good time with him over the weekend! It wasn’t an out of the ordinary weekend. We didn’t do anything spectacular or go anywhere wildly exciting. It was just really nice and it’d been the first time in a few weeks that it was just the two of us for the entire time, no meeting others, no bumping into people we knew.

So, cringe alert, I feel that it only right I for once relay the ‘good’ stuff that happened in the last 48 hours. He made me laugh and then laugh some more. I got a full rundown of what happened at a gig on Friday night and as we know each other much better now, it wasn’t hard to picture some of the scenes, exactly how he relayed them. He told me on numerous occasions that I was looking really good. He went out to the ATM, got me money too as I held the fort in the pub but I know that he spent more than me, he earns more than I do and so doesn’t expect me to pay for 50% of the night. He was really encouraging when I told him I was planning on doing a Creative writing workshop and perhaps a Fiction course in the next few months. He told me that he didn’t know what it was, but that I was looking really good and that I’ve looked better than ever in the last few weeks. He didn’t even roll his eyes when I gave him an update on what Molly and Fizzy had been up to during the week! He thanked me for keeping an eye out on the TV screen nearby – ‘From Dusk til Dawn’ was on and he hadn’t seen it, I’d said that I knew he wouldn’t want to miss that Salma Hayek scene and duly gave him a heads up when it came on. We laughed about it and agreed that he’d do the same for me if it was Christian Slater and still hasn’t complained about my increasing excitement that Fernando Verdasco should get good ‘camera time’ during Wimbledon next week. He was worried when we left as I’d no jacket, he offered me his and when I refused he said I was to let him know if I was cold on the walk home. Once in his place, he opened wine and handed me a glass and left me to peruse the iPod and choose whatever - this is an increasingly common occurrence, a very big deal if you knew how different our tastes in music are!

Yesterday, as we chatted in bed, he asked if I would like to go out for lunch – a timely question as I was gearing up to ask the same. We ate in a pub that had the tennis on [Queen's Club] so that I could watch it, he doesn’t have much interest. He paid for lunch without a flinch, even though I would’ve offered to pay half and we walked out of our way home because I wanted to get an ice cream from a particular place. It was all very relaxed back in his place, more paper reading, shared bags of crisps and a general feeling of being comfortable doing nothing together. A ‘guilty TV’ love of ‘The Hills’ always has us turning in amazement to see the others reaction to a particularly catty comment or look and then minutes of laughing out loud, surmising what might happen next. More shared vino and general chit chat between two people that had spent over 24hrs together, with no one else in between and we went to bed. The last thing I can remember is him wrapped around me on my side of the bed and this morning when I woke up I was wrapped around him on his side of the bed.

Rock and a Hard Place

My head hurts. I’m not sure which is causing the pain, the rock or the hard place but both are banging against my thought factory and causing me no end of pissed-off-ness. I feel like I’m constantly running towards the rock and then when I’m halfway there, I’m coming to a halt, turning around and wondering if heading towards the hard place would be less painful overall.

Now, I’m going to fore go the saga of the hows and whys regarding myself and McSmile being back on speaking terms, more than speaking terms again, just take it from me that we are, ok? That’s a whole other post, for another time, maybe. I was out last week and My Other Dad in no uncertain terms told me that he’s not impressed with McSmile. As I stood facing him, my face changed from one of laughter and a good night out to a raised eyebrow as I then stood, open mouthed, with this prickly feeling in my throat and behind my eyes. What he actually said was that he ‘didn’t like McSmile’ and that I ‘can do far better’ adding in that McSmile ‘isn’t good enough for me’ for good measure. He then proceeded to tell me that The Glamourous Blonde was ’shocked.. no disgusted’ that I was back with McSmile. Apparently, I’m ‘on my own now’ in terms of what happens next with McSmile.

This is coming from a couple I know for a few years now, who seem very much in agreement of their dislike for the person that although I find it hard to use the term ‘boyfriend’, is most definitely the person I’ve been seeing for the last 7 months and it isn’t exactly what I wanted to hear.

Still Incoming

It goes ‘on and on and on’ like the clichéd Journey song always meant it to but now I’m really wondering WTF is actually going on . You read about the ex below, who got in touch totally out of the blue. Well now I’m after getting a Facebook friend request from another ex from about 6? maybe 7 years ago. We went out a few times and I wasn’t that interested, nice enough guy but he had a canny knack of just ringing and saying he’d booked tickets for Film X that I’d mentioned or that he’d booked a table at Restaurant Y that he knew I liked. I actually got bored of trying to be nice, giving him a chance and just going with it. I answered his texts less and less, turned him down on numerous occasions and then after several ‘no’s’, he was bugging me so much that I ignored him altogether. This went on for about a year, i.e. him not getting the message and there’d still be intermittent texts over the months for quite some time.

Then I was out of the country for a while and I got a text from him about a week after I came back, this is now approx 4 years ago. He asked how I was, what I’d been up to and I answered as I was still all upbeat from my time away. A few days later I turned him down to meet for a drink later that week, 5 minutes later my phone rang, I absentmindedly answered it he was on the other end of the line – ‘Where are you? Sure I can be there in half an hour!’ Damn and blast! Cue very uncomfortable catch up drink, I brought him to a bar I knew he’d hate, there was no kissing and while he still kept on texting, I kept ignoring. Then finally approx a year after this second bout of contact, I told him to give the rugby ticket to someone else and praise the Lord, he stopped contacting me. Until last weekend when he sent the Facebook request.

I have no intention of dragging all that up again but I was curious to see his pic – show me someone that wouldn’t be?! I clicked into his profile page and there he was, looking just the same, which is actually quite good looking in a bit of a nerdy way. And how does he describe his relationship status? Married. Married, that’s what! So why oh why oh why did he look me up again? That ship has long sailed buddy. 

Back to the email out of the blue a few weeks back. I was kinda seeing this guy for a small while but knowing I was going away on said foreign trip and would be gone for some months, I wasn’t pushed to keep it going while I was away. There were a couple of emails exchanged recently but as I was never that interested and all this originally happened 4 years ago, suffice to say that my 2nd email was very much straight answers to the questions he asked and I had no desire to keep the chat going so I didn’t ask any in reply. Even my first reply literally just had a ‘How are you’ politely placed at the end of the email with no other questions inbetween.

I also got a Facebook request from this guy over the weekend! Now, as I’d surmised, he had been due to get married about 2 years ago so I didn’t know if he’d actually gotten married, got married and had already split up etc. So, again I click into his Facebook pic and what does his relationship status say? Single, Single is what! So, now he’s single I’m sure I’m part of a chain of ‘used to knows’ that he’s trying to unsingle his life with. Am I going to confirm this request either? No way hose! I’ve absolutely no desire to rake this up again and even less desire to compete with all the saddos that base life achievements on the number of Facebook friends they have.

God! Is it the weather? It is that I give off this impression that I will always be single and therefore a refuge for any of my exes finding themselves suddenly single or living in the middle of nowhere that now-married ex seems to be. Am I destined to be the party girl that never settles down until one day I wake up and realise I’ve just tried to chat up a friend’s son or worse that every one forgets my name and I just become the ‘lady who likes a sherry but watch out for all the cats she has’.

*Sigh* I don’t mind being ‘the lady who likes a sherry’, I don’t even mind being the ‘lady who likes sherry that has loads of cats’, I just don’t want to be the the type of person thought of as remaining on the shelf for my entire life.

On Loop

Jesus. For the last while, try couple of weeks, I can’t stop thinking about some of my Ex’s. And when I’m not thinking about one of them, I’m bursting into a blast of Kylie’s ‘Can’t Get You Outta My Head’. I feel like I’m going to explode with frustration! And the thing is, I’m not thinking about one or two specifically, just kinda having those cringe-filled fleeting flashes of past events. No! Not those ‘kind of events’! Just of the ‘OMG – now he was an asshole’ type moments or ‘That was weird the way he disappeared’ or ‘Oh, just because he was nice but dull doesn’t mean he really deserved another date’ type ponderings.

I’m blaming that ex for so randomly getting in touch a few weeks ago and the fact that I found myself with a lot of time to think while cat sitting. Now, I’m so over the ‘Who does he think he is?’  bloody mindedness of those bolt from the blue emails and I still couldn’t care less about him, truth be told, he hasn’t popped up in any of my thoughts as he was never a runner and details about him are hazy, him being a fairly bland person overall. But I’m finding it difficult to categorize how I feel about different exes. I mean, once someone becomes an ex, chances are they are labelled an asshole until you can drag yourself out of your self imposed cotton wool cocoon and well, by then you’ve stopped caring, so that kind of asshole can do what they like from then on anyway!

I suppose I’m also trying to figure out what kind of an impact certain exes had on me. There would’ve been a number of fleeting, casual encounters that involved meeting up every so often for a bit of a laugh and then after a while I couldn’t care less if I either bumped into them when I was with someone else or simply never again. Insert a hugeamount of eyerolling here – a huge amount. I like to thoroughly research a subject before coming to a conclusion but I definitely have met enough assholes to cover any kind of statistical sample number needed to confirm that they exist.

I mean, certain foods, certain songs, certain little habits – do I have any now that I know I can attribute to a specific person that I spent a small, medium or large amount of time with? One ex was very into Science Fiction and while everyone goes through a phase of it at some stage, most likely in college, I always hated missing EastEnders on a Monday night because the compromise was that he got to watch ‘Deep Space Nine’. I ended up watching it with him each week but haven’t been pulled to Science Fiction of any kind since. A strange one is that I haven’t eaten a packet of Salt n Vinegar Hula Hoops for about 10 years as a certain 3 or 4 date guy was once eating a packet when I bumped into him, before he was consigned to the ‘Asshole Pile’. Aussie hairstuff is the same – I have not and will not ever touch that stuff due to a bottle of its shampoo adorning the bathroom of a Class A Asshole [and apparently the '3Minute Miracle' or whatever treatment is meant to be great!]. Jeez, now I’m wondering if some of them have turned me into a complete freak! 

I’ve lived in Dublin for quite some years now, so I’m always bumping into someone I knew from way back – be they someone I was in school with, a friend that I drifted away from or someone there was a little romance with. I’ll say hello, do the chat thing. But if it’s someone I’m not in contact with right now, I won’t ask for their number, even in a flaky, ‘we must go for a drink’ type way, I hate all that bull. I’ll just say that it was good to catch up – inevitably, even if I’d rather walk on hot coals than spend another 5minutes in that person’s company, it’s good to see how much older they look, how I’m soo not jealous of the 3 kids pulling out of them wanting the toilet, the where did you get him or her thankfully I don’t have to put up with that in a current partner nightmare and finally, it’s always good when the person, especially the ex that you bump into, says something whereby a whole range of things come flooding back and you realise that you’re glad you got out when you did. Really glad.

Ex Marks the Spot

People come and go, a bit like buses, always or mostly always on the move. Situations change. Good things happen and not so good things happen. A bit like ex’s – some are good and some, well, definitely not so good.

‘Ex’ should mark the spot because ultimately, where ever and whenever the break up happened, it should stay there. I really am a firm believer in that, even though and don’t get me wrong, I’ve lameted a few that got away and perhaps in a nostalgia tinged moment years later wondered ‘what if?’, when it comes down to it, there’s no point living in the past.

Now I sound like that bloody book, ‘It’s called a break-up because it’s broken’..  I digress…

What I’m getting at here is essentially the fact that I’m not too fond of just looking up a past loves ‘just for old times sake’. Not a very Mills & Boon thing to say, but I just don’t see the point – you’ve moved on, they’ve moved on, everyone is older and the hope of happily ever after is the reality of a mere fleeting glimpse of contentment that comes along far less than you’d like it to.

I got an email from an ex last week, simply asking if I ‘was still around?’, just that, a one liner! I mean, what kind of an email is that? I wasn’t going to reply but I thought about it and a day or two later, I was in a generous mood so I replied. I told him that I was. Said how I’d changed jobs, told him where I was working and said that I was still living where I did when we went out. It wasn’t a 3 line email, it was friendly yet non committal, ie in girl code, I didn’t ask any deliberate questions that he might feel inclined to answer apart from a last line of ‘how are you?’ out of politeness.

I got a reply within a matter of hours. It was all upbeat and chatty, even longer than my reply. I read it in work and it was almost like a wave of disgust came over me – why was this guy mailing me? It’s been like 4 years. It was a very casual thing anyway and one day I just didn’t reply to his text nor pick up his subsequent phone call. Yeah, you’re right, I just couldn’t be arsed. Then I got to thinking… This guy was due to get married about 2 years ago. He met someone very soon after me and texted me to say he’d met someone else that he was really, really into – he sounded happy so I thought good luck to him. Then I bumped into him a few months later and he told me he was engaged. I fake smiled at him, whether he copped on to my insincerity or not, he was too busy telling me he was absolutely delighted for himself as he really, really wanted to get married and have kids. Whatever! Go do your thing. It really doesn’t factor high on my list of things I’m so happy about I could burst.

They were due to get married about a year and a half after that. I presume they did get married. I presumed they were still married until I started wondering why, if they are married, is he contacting me? Especially after all this time. Why would you contact an ex if you were happy with someone else? Why would you want to contact an ex if you’re not happy and risk find out that they’re living the absolute life of Reilly in daily raptures of complete joy? [Ok, Ok, I'm getting a little carried away but last thing you want to hear when you're sad is that your ex is bordering on deliriously happy].

I just don’t get why he contacted me. And I definitely am not swayed by that old chestnut of him ‘just wanting to know how I was getting on’ – yeah right, something definitely smells a bit fishy. Did he get married? Is he still married? I don’t know. He used the very vague ‘…still working in XYZ place but might move on soon.. living in abc so I can walk to work…’ type of communication. No ‘I’m living’ or ‘We’re living’ – there was no mention of anyone else.

Anyway, the bottom line was that once I got thinking I decided to let him know where he stood. In his second email, amonst other things, he had asked how I had ended up working where I am now. My second email to him was very succinct, to the point. I answered his question, explained that my day to day job is now the flip side of what I used to do, said I like it and signed off. It wasn’t a rude email but it wasn’t a friendly one with questions galore to keep the new found old friendship going. No questions, no ‘talk soon’ or ‘keep in touch!’ – bleugh! I hate those crappy sayings that people reel off when they mean the opposite but give in to using the standard fob off type line.

To quote the very quotable Samantha Jones, ‘If you sleep with an ex and it’s good, you’re pissed off you’re not with them and if you sleep with an ex and it’s bad.. well.. then you’ve just slept with an ex’. And that’s tragic.

Man Friday

Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

Well ye should cos there’s a lot of girls beating a path to your door! Fernando Verdasco is currently Number 9 in the World Tennis rankings and personally, I’d help this hottie with his balls any day of the week!

The 26 year old Spanish Spinner is the second ranked player in his country but only to the World Number 1, Raphael Nadal. The two met earlier this year in the semi final of the Australian Grand Slam – a game that lasted a record 5hrs 14minutes that was hard fought over 5 sets with Nadalscraping through in the final set 6-4. This game – and boy do I count my lucky stars that I got to drool over both players for the entire time – is widely regarded as one of the best games of tennis ever played!

 

Verdasco is a very aggressive baseliner who is widely considered consistent on all surfaces. Many players including Andy Roddick consider him to have one of the hardest forehands on tour. His serve is characteristic of a left-handed player predominantly using slice to create a lot of swing.

He is known for rivaling compatriot Rafael Nadal with the amount of top spin he can put on a ball. Which is great for tennis fans but even better on both counts for the likes of me is that he poses for pix like these!

1 City, 100 Pubs

London went like this;

Friday

McSmile stuck in traffic, late-ish for flight. Took advantage of Spirits Promotion and had 2 vodkas [me] and 2 brandies [McSmile] on the plane. A stressful trip into M&S [now referred to as 'SandwichGate'] meant a sambo while on the train into Victoria and a can of beer for McSmile [insert raise of eyebrow and the word 'Feckit' here]. Straight across from Victoria and into the Duke of York. Vodka all round, our little troupe now including McSmile’s Bro. Tube to Islington. Pop into The Famous Cock ‘for one’ while waiting for Bro’s friend to arrive [btw, I barely got a 'Very Funny' from McSmile when I exclaimed that I didn't know they'd named a pub after him.] Did I drink vodka there? McSmile was on beer. A short hop to McSmile’s Sis’ house. Wine, deffo wine there. Chat chat chat. Left there around 10.30 to allow for child in the house and big evint the next day. Myself and McSmile checked out the Duchess of Kent around the corner and then some other pub where the barman wasn’t particularly accommodating, probably annoyed waiting for his next modelling assignment to come through and then on to the Tube again. At this point jumping through on one ticket as I’d lost mine. ‘Change at Vauxhall, then get the train to Twickenham’, advised the Bro. ‘Bollix! Wake up! Vauxhall! That’s us!’. Walk to McSmile’s Dad’s place really dying to pee. Beer on the sofa. Good idea to just sleep there as I only had to stand for 2 minutes until the sofa bed was all made up.

Saturday

Leisurely start over rasher sambos. Train from Strawberry Hill into Picadilly. The obligatory ‘Regent St is this way’ conversation. Walk past the turn for Great Marlborough St, walk back, McSmile decides very quickly that Liberty isn’t his kind of shop. We arrange to meet at particular time. McSmile not overly impressed with the Rodrigo Otazu bracelet I’m willing to buy and fore go the rent for. Schlep towards SoHo to find a bookies. Confirm how much a taxi back to Islington is, jump in taxi and then hunt down our first alcohol of the day! We opted for a Slug & Lettuce [pub chain] as the Grand National was starting. I gazed longingly at the houses for sale in the window of an estate agents nearby for 10mins as the race was on [can't watch horses fall!] and had a lovely fag outside as well. Arrival of Sis, Sis’ Husband and Son. Cue all attention on the 4 year old. I keep my sunnies on so I can pretend I’m not in the vicinity of a kid. Back to the house after several drinks. Time to get ready, after the vino was opened. I did my make up in full view of ‘The Boys’ in the mirror in the sitting room as it meant I was near another drink and the table is massive for optimum product spreading out. Me, McSmile & Bro decide to have ‘one’ for the road and then have a few in The Duchess of Kent before getting to the club where the party is being held. I get poured a glass of Prosecco before I can get to the bar, so all is well. Several glasses of Prosecco later, several chats ahem, at people I hadn’t met before, several ‘Try the prawn thingys, they’re really good’ later, one lost bag found behind the bar [I got as far as describing my wallet, my camera and then when I said 'a really grubby Hello Kitty purse' the barman rolled his eyes, disappeared and came back with my bag - No idea! No idea where I left it], pix galore, more ‘OOOHHHH YOU’RE Glitter!’ conversations than you could shake a stick at and so, so much general merriment and laughter… It was back to the house for a few more drinks, of what I don’t know as I can’t remember this part at all.

Sunday

Waking up on a strip of couch approx 2 inches wide the length of my shoulders and back, prised between McSmile and the back of the couch, no duvet/pillows or any of those unnecessary things, I realised that my legs were twisted in a funny way and that how best to describe me was ‘mostly underneath’ a McSmile that was half hanging off the couch. It was only a bit funny when he wouldn’t let me prise myself out of this position when I really, really needed to pee. It was even less funny when Sis asked us why we didn’t pull out the bed – ‘You do know it’s a sofa bed?’. Breakfast was a couple of fags and a sigh of ‘Jesus, I’d better get out of this dress’.

‘OMG! It’s not closed, is it? It can’t be closed!’ No, it wasn’t closed and we found ourselves inside the Duchess of Kent again and then outside of it while we basked in the early afternoon sunshine, smiling at how wonderful alcohol is on a sunny day after a great party. One cab ride to the other side of Islington and we were at ‘The Island Queen’ for Brunch. We took advantage of the sun and so sat outside. Mmm more Bourbon. The food was disappointing and there were kids at the table. I kept my shades on as much as possible but I think everyone had got the message that I’m not a kid person by then anyway. Back to the house, a few more drinks, an exchange of pressies for the Birthday Girl – ‘OMG! This is fantastic! Really fantastic! OMG!’ and it was time to go.. well, go to the pub to watch the footie. We went to The Bailey [which is where we could've been on Friday at some point, I'm not sure], which is also Arsenal HQ so we were a bit wary. Then a pit stop outside Victoria after the strenuous Tube ride, ahem, and into a pub who’s name I’ve no idea, a few drinks and then the realisation that we’re pretty f*cked in terms of making our flight and well, not exactly sober. Flight was 8.45, we were in the middle of London and it was 7.30. We jumped onto a Gatwick Express that we didn’t have the right tickets for, thanked the conductor profusely after he let us off paying the extra charge for the Express tickets, that we, ahem, didn’t know we had to pay, we raced to the check in desk. I was really hoping my trolley bag wouldn’t be plastered in approx 10 ‘LAST BAG’ stickers as it had been on the way out and then we raced to the board, went to run to the gate, ran back to the board to check that we had the right gate number and then started to practically shout to people ahead to get out of the way as we were in a hurry. Although, in fairness, what they probably heard first was McSmile shouting at me to hurry up and me telling him I ‘couldn’t in these heels’. We got home in one piece and ordered pizza with the collection of coins splayed across the table in McSmile’s. I was glad I didn’t have work the next day but I didn’t say that too loud to McSmile who did have work the next morning.

London Baby!!

  

I CAN’T WAIT I CAN’T WAIT I CAN’T WAIT

I’m off to London Baby!!

‘Dress to Impress’ Evint – check

Posh Guna & Evening Gloves – check

Killer Hells – check

 

Normal posting will resume at some stage

Woo Hoo!!

Does My Bum Look Big In This?

Last Sunday was a blast. It was one of those totally unplanned days that seemed to go on forever, without the knowledge of knowing what would happen next. It started out with McSmile announcing that we should go for brunch – eating out again and drinking during the day AGAIN was sure doing a lot for our plan not to spend the equivalent to the GNP of a small country per weekend.. for the ahem, second weekend in a row since we made the decision. We couldn’t decide where to eat as we strolled into town. The Mermaid Cafe ‘looked too busy’, there was ‘bound to be somewhere in Temple Bar, I ‘didn’t want to eat Mexican’ [Oh the thoughts! My stomach was still very delicate from the night before] and eventually McSmile had the brainwave of ‘Sure let’s just go to X and Y’s place!’, X and Y being friend’s of his that own a great cafe/restaurant in the city centre. Result!

X was there and within 2 minutes a window table was free and ours. As soon as we walked in I just knew it was going to be one of those giggly days that would go straight down the path to copious drinking and general ducking and diving. And maybe it was because we were really just topping up on the alcohol from the night before. X sat with us and started telling us about his recent trip to New Zealand which included getting stranded in the middle of nowhere after a cop took his hire car off him for speeding, a gorge swing from 109m, a ‘meet the parents’ couple of days, hardcore partying with a bunch of strippers and getting his hand bitten by a girl when he wouldn’t give her his drink [only one of these things happened when he was with his girlfriend, guess which one!]

‘Hey, do ye want to go to a fashion show?’ It’s like, I dunno, some kind of fashion show with clothes and girls and stuff. It’s an invite only thing, I’ve a couple of tickets. Says on the invite that there’ll be champagne’

Can you tell where this was going? I was lucky to be able to see at that point, having had a half bottle of vino and then a ‘Fuckit, order another one’ suggestion from McSmile, brought total alcohol up to a bottle of wine, by myselfand about 100 bottles of beer for McSmile. It was about 5pm. Yes, really.

We walked up the stairs, the guys having, of course, asked the poor guy on the door if there was any goody bags on offer and then promptly fell into glasses of champagne. There were rails of clothes and a makeshift catwalk boxed off by two straight lines of tea lights on the wooden floor.

‘So, like, is there going to be like a fashion show thing?, asked McSmile, ‘or do we just drink champagne and look at the clothes on the rails?’ as he walked across the makeshift catwalk, threatening to turn the tea lights  into skittles.

‘Eh hello! You’ve just walked across it!’

‘Oh. Right’.

We perused the clothes, X went off and came back with three more glasses of champagne, the place fell silent and the curtains came back, the show was starting.

The first guy that walked out looked completely morto as he strutted his stuff to a whole gaggle of girls that were obviously mates of his standing right beside us. The next time he came out he looked very reassured to have a ‘real’ model by his side! It was clearly a mix of real and not real models as guys and girls of various heights and weights kept the show on the road for about 20 minutes. Not long into the show, the two lads started getting a bit excited about some of the clothes.

‘Hey. what do you think of that? I think it’s ok, might suit me, right?’

‘Yeah, think it would man, are ye like thinking of getting it?’

After the show there was a general descending onto the clothes rails. McSmile disappeared from my left, X from my right and I was just standing there until one of them called me,

‘Hey Glitter.. what do you think of this shirt? Kinda nice, huh?’

‘Glitter, Glitter, would this go with, y’know the jeans I have, the ones, ye know…’

‘But Glitter, should I try the shirt on? Might as well, huh?’

I was a little shell shocked and decided to put down my empty glass of champagne and sure I could spot that there was still some on offer so feckit, I picked up another glass. I turned around to ask the guys if they wanted another glass. There was McSmile, now sporting a baseball cap, the price tag dangling on his shoulder, he was standing in front of the mirror seeing how it looked with his RayBans that had been pulled out of his pocket. There was a girl from one of the labels talking to him as he turned this way and that, then she handed him a shirt and the two of them were utterly engrossed in conversation.

‘Glitter, so, well, what do you think? I’m not sure. I think I’m too tall for them, they need to be baggier to suit my legs.’

X had now tried on the combats he’d been eyeing up.

‘Hey Glitter! Come over here!’, McSmile needed some reassurance. ‘What about this belt? [Belt! He now had a belt as well!] Is it me though? I’m not sure…’

‘Yes Darling, it’s you, you should get it, really nice… btw, how much stuff have you tried on by now?

‘So Glitter, I’m thinking I won’t get the combats’, X was getting a bit disheartened, ‘But hey! I kinda like this shirt!’

‘Oi! Gerroff! I’m buying that shirt X! And you’re not getting one as well, try on the white one, the collar is really nice, it’d suit you!’

OMG. I was really having to try hard in order to keep a straight face. I had to wander off, pretend to be interested in some of the clothes on the other side of the room, so I just left the drunk little fashion bitches to it for a bit. Now, I too was fairly drunk but I wasn’t causing mayhem, trying on everything in sight and hogging the mirrors so no one else could get near them, I was just walking around in my own champagne haze until I heard my name,

‘Glitter! There’s some jewellery over here!

‘OMG! how much are you actually buying?

‘Well, the shirt, the other shirt, the belt, I’m not sure about the jeans… I’m still deciding on the..’

‘Glitter, I decided to get the white shirt after all, McSmile reckoned I should…’

Oh god, I ended up roaring laughing at the two of them and they laughed as well. And then we celebrated a great afternoon by stumbling across the road to another pub. I’m a bit unsure about things after that.