I’ll just pop out for one

My plan this evening, after a busy week and a pretty hectic day, was to pop out to the bar for one drink to celebrate Ash’s birthday, before heading home for a healthy dinner and an early night. Nick was out for a St George’s Day lunch where he and a load of other English brokers all wear red and white, get drunk at lunchtime and sing patriotic songs for the rest of the day. I knew he would be out for a while, and I thought it was probably better for me to leave him to it rather than trying to keep up!

            I finished work at around six and found myself with at least an hour and a half to spare before the birthday celebrations got underway, so I took myself to a nice little rooftop bar near the venue, where I got set up with a little gin and tonic to enjoy the view. Surprisingly Nick was ready to leave his singing group at around the same time, so he joined me for an hour or so to help me pass the time.

Tucked away table for a gin with a view

Once we got to the venue for the birthday celebrations what I had planned to be just an hour or so of catching up quickly before sneaking out somehow ended up turning into a good few hours of being out and about. Sometimes the groups of people at these events don’t quite work for me, but there were some really great guys at these drinks, and we got to meet Matt’s new girlfriend, who was not only lovely, but who also seemed to need protecting from the masses, so I adopted her for a few hours and we watched the rest of the world falling progressively further into a drunk state of, well, mess.

            By around 11pm it was time for me to go home, and thankfully Nick was in firm agreement, so we slipped out, still a lot earlier than most, but impressively later than my planned 8:30pm departure.