Totally frenetic weekend just gone and I'm absolutely exhausted! Bob was around on Friday night after I finished my shift at work. He came over from Harrow to go to the Black Sheep with me, but the situation was made needlessly complicated by the trains from his end not running to Sutton. By the time he had figured out an alternative way to get to West Croydon from London Bridge, I had got home, showered, changed, had dinner, and got to Sutton. Luckily I had managed to catch the 2nd last train out of Sutton, getting there for about midnight.
It was freezing when we arrived at Sheep, and luckily there was no queue to get in. Disturbingly, I'm starting to think that the Sheep's biometric fingerprinting is actually rather cool, whereas a couple of years ago it seemed like unnecessary prying. Almost immediately after arriving, we'd set ourselves up near a group of three girls, one of whom Bob claims was "looking at me in an interested way several times." This does of course illustrate the level and depth of Bob's judgment, as when I asked her if she wanted to dance, she fobbed me off with "sorry, I've already got a bf."
A while later, something surreal happened. Bob was busy getting himself a snake bite, a smaller (younger?) girl came trotting up to me and introduced herself as Harriet. She then wrapped her arms around me and hugged herself against me in a totally flirtatious way, before murmuring, "you've got a nice hug", after which she vanished back into the crowd. Now if I was any other guy in the world I would have already committed to memory what such a hot, confident girl would look like. But oh no, not Jamie. I was so drunk by this point that I had completely forgotten what she even looked like. No phone number, not zip. Tragic.
We stayed at the Sheep until they closed, about 4.15am. By then, of course, the hot girls had been snapped up, and the place was rapidly turning into a meatfest. So we took the only sensible course of action, which was a cab home. (Thank you TFL for stopping the N213!) Bob had to be back at the train station by 8.30, so we had just under 4 hours sleep. We walked down there in the biting morning cold, and I picked the car up from where I parked it just hours before. Then it was back home for a quick coffee, and off to work...
...which was a total snoozefest. After work came a quick couple of hours' kip, and then it was off to the Badminton Xmas Meal at the Mint, in Banstead. Much hilarity when everyone arrived, as the Mint had apparently lost our orders and had no idea what everyone wanted to eat. Luckily, the club president Neil had kept a photocopy of our options. I had the roasted stuffed mushrooms to start (anyone who knows me in the slightest will testify that this is unbelievable!) followed by a traditional main course of roast turkey, pig in blanket, sage & onion stuffing, veg, and gravy, with Christmas pudding for dessert.
I have to say that I really enjoyed the Christmas meal a lot more than I thought I would. This sort of social occasion has, in the past, gotten a bad image from some of the other players at the club - an old player called Stan mentioned that the last time he went, hardly anyone talked to him, and he felt frozen out. However, everyone I talked to was unfailingly polite. This could be because the Christmas meal is almost entirely attended by Monday night players only. As Stan plays on the other two nights at the club, he wouldn't know anyone in any real depth or have much to talk about with them. For about a year now, I have been playing all three nights in an attempt to improve my game and learn from my mistakes. It seems that this determination has been bearing fruit, as I am no longer losing mixed or mens doubles games with scorelines like 21-4 or 21-5, and feel more confident and capable of holding my own against some of the better players. Quite a lot of the Monday players have been extremely generous in their praise of my improvement too, which is very heartening and pleasing.
After the Christmas meal came the Cranes Park house party in Surbiton! I was in quite a rush to pick up some cheap beer from the supermarket before I made my way over there. In any case, I needed to pick up 'twat nav' and an oversized bottle of Ouzo from home as it had been a while since I was last there. The party seemed quite casual when I arrived, but someone explained that there were a whole load of other musicians coming down after a nearby concert at St John's Church had finished. As it turned out, none of these extra guests showed up, so the party didn't actually get into full swing.
There was a piano and huge guitar amp in the living room, with loads of other musical gear everywhere - as you've probably guessed being the home of four musicians. Fordie was playing New Born when I arrived, but he gave up after awhile. I sat down and began an impromptu rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody which accumulated a massive singalong of some 15 drunk people! This was followed by Don't Stop Me Now and Summer of '69. It was just like one of our band practices at uni, with a slightly sinister undertone as I was in Dee's house this time. Finally, someone produced an iPhone and plugged it into the guitar amp. This allowed us to pick up the Spotify Premium application, which was very innovative! I introduced a few of the others to Sky Larkin, and they seemed quite impressed.
I got talking to a cute girl called Lizzie and somehow miraculously managed to get her phone number off her. Even more miraculously, she asked for mine! She was complimentary on my piano skills and said that she'd only ever learnt one piece, Greensleeves. I think I babbled some inane reply, along the lines of 'well that's a fairly good first piece to learn, most people learn Happy Birthday or something!' She works with Steph at Next, is still at Surbiton High finishing off her A levels, and intends to study history at college/uni. At the moment, I am trying to see if she's up for drinkage sometime in the week. As Danny Devito's character might have said in L.A. Confidential: "When I know more, dear reader, so will you. Off the record, on the QT, and very hush hush!"
Lizzie eh very promising.....get in!!!!
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