Same Old... Same Old...

...or "When Exactly Will I Become An Adult, Mommy?"

So... new valve arrived on Saturday morning...

...BRIGHT AND EARLY...

[Side note: if Special Delivery is so special, why don't they make the postman wait until you're at least awake and preferably dressed before knocking on your front door?]

Anywho. Valve arrived. Didn't have time to fit it on Saturday. Had literally 10 minutes free time to shove it in and have a play on Sunday, in between hurriedly vacuuming the flat and guests arriving at 12:30.

Rewind... what?

Okay, so Tim and I were supposed to be having a day together on Saturday, having been royally punished by our personal trainer for being so lardy... at 10am! Now, c'mon, everybody's a bit lardy at 10am, aren't they? So, he basically spent the hour between 10 and 11 trying to kill us, forcing our puny bodies to do all kind of things that are grossly unnatural.

"Why the hell would I want to lift that?

D'Oh.

So, battered, bruised and broken after the gym we headed into town on the bikes for the day. Zoom-zoom, beep-beep, all good. We had theatre tickets for a show at 20:00, so after a few hours of terrorising unsuspecting Chrimbo pedestrians we returned home, showered, changed and headed out.

Oh, before we leave the West End (for now), special note goes to Carnaby Street (as usual) for having the season's best Christmas decorations! Giant inflatable snowmen! Terribly "Ghostbusters" but rather fun.

Everything was going according to plan. We arrived at the theatre just in time for a swift beverage, took our places in the darkened hall and sat through the first half.

...'Sat through'... no laughing... at all... and it was supposed to be a comedy! In deference to the performers I'm not going to let on which show it was, but let's just say that sometimes theatre is less than the sum of its parts. That was soooo true in this instance.

The interval lights came up, we looked at each other knowingly and walked out. We never do that! About that time our best laid plans started to fall apart. After a quick dinner at Ping Pong (WHY???!?) we headed into Soho to try and salvage the evening. See, the thing is that we knew that this would be about our only time to enjoy ourselves, what with my work and Tim's studies. We also knew that we had friends arriving at around 12:30 on Sunday so we couldn't stay out late.

I think it was the mojito at Ping Pong that did it. That was the tipping point. After that everything seems like a blur.

...or maybe it was the cheap mixed drinks at one of the backstreet bars in Soho... one that we had to leave because some weird (drunk) guy was gushing about how he'd been with his partner for 26 years but Tim was the most handsome man he'd ever seen in his life (whilst squeezing my knee! Of course, I'm contracturally obliged to agree that Tim is the most handsome man in the world but I suspect that the blood in this guy's alcohol system may have been affecting his judgement. Whatever. We elected to change venue...

I distinctly remember not dancing at the Shadow Lounge... seemingly a spot to 'get on down' with the cream of the C-list crop. After the Shadow Lounge I unsuccessfully tried to channel my mother, saying that we should be sensible and get home so that we could get up early in the morning to clean house. Next thing I knew it was 4am and we were dancing on a podium in one of London's many, many underground clubs.

12:30 comes around quickly when you're out all night shaking your groove thing... and the morning mirror is not your friend, I can tell you!

...all of which is a long-winded way of saying that no, I didn't get the chance to road test the new valve in my amp. I fitted it and noodled for 20 seconds before realising that I needed to scrape the residue from my drunken late-night pizza making attempt from the kitchen surfaces.

Today I'm just keeping on, keeping on. Sunday's gut-busting Brick Lane curry is still sitting heavy and I'm slightly dreading the meetup with friends for Xmas drinks tonight. Maybe I should stick to soft drinks... there's always a first time, eh?