A Party with Friends
We escaped the house for a few hours last night to attend the birthday party of a friend. Part of the hard-wiring of my brain (lets call it “up-bringing” demands that you cannot arrive at a birthday party empty handed, so I wandered into town yesterday morning to buy a present of some sort.
How do you choose a present for somebody you don't actually know very well? I ended up thinking in vague terms about the age, gender, and personality of the person it was for, and thought “he's pretty much like meso if I get him something I would like, hopefully that will work”. The problem with this line of thinking is that the town we live in has become increasingly gentrified in recent years90% of the high street shops are boutiques, coffee shops, or restaurants. The clothes shops stock clothes either for entitled children of wealthy parents, or bizarre pants suits for ladies of a certain age.
I ended up in the stationersW H Smithswho also have a pretty good selection of books. It's the last place we can buy books in town, after the land-owner destroyed all the independent shops with rent increases. Our high street used to have two very good book shops, a butchers, a fishmonger, and a hardware storethey have all gone.
I chose a quirky little coffee table book filled with all the subjects you once learned at school, but forgot about years agoeverything from trigonometry to the history of the Kings of England. I liked it, therefore figured he probably would.
We were an hour late for the party. I guess some people would call that “fashionably late”. I hate being late for things. We had a good reason thoughmy other half had to go and buy a new car yesterday (or at least, “new to us”). She didn't get back until well after the party had started, and ran straight off upstairs to get changed. We now have a very posh looking silver Vauxhall Safira parked on the drive, in case you're wondering. I still wonder who on earth buysnewcars.
I can't remember the last time we went to a party. I always secretly dread going to events where I don't know many peopleI worry about having to make conversation with people I don't know. Of course nobody ever figures this outthey think I'll talk to anybody about anything. Once I get over the “hump” of talking to one person, I forget all about it. Alcohol helps.
I needn't have been concernedapart from one very odd conversation with quite possibly the most misogynistic man I've ever had the pleasure of listening to (which was actually pretty entertaining, looking back), everybody was lovely. Of course they were lovelybecause they were friend of our friendsand our friends are lovely. I'm biased.
I think we were the only people that bought a present, and thankfully it went down really well. A “good shout” as they say.
As the evening wore on, our middle girl grew tired (we only took one daughter with useldest stayed at home with a pizza, and youngest was on a sleep-over). She approached the circle of people we were stood with in the way only children can.“When are we going home?“There were several “ahhh”'s from the crowd as we held her hands, and said our goodbyes. A wonderful evening that pretty much proved Bilbo Baggins line about stepping outside your front door. We definitely need to do it more often.