Book Group Christmas Meal

That Café plays host to our Book Group’s Christmas meal and overall it does us proud. As ever some people rate quantity over quality, but you can’t please all the people all of the time and in my opinion it hits a pretty good mid-point balance.

The whole debate of heaps versus flavour reminds me of the years I spent of organising Christmas do’s for work. It started as a small little department affair, but it got a reputation and picked up more and more souls until J and I eventually culled the beast as the numbers swelled to over 60 for lunch and nigh on 100 for the pub crawl, comprising of folk from at least four different companies and with behaviour sinking to all time new lows year on year (not that it’s not amusing to watch one’s sixty year old Chief Eng1neer dance on the top of a bar, or hold a conversation with a co-worker whilst he keeps a restraining hold onto the back of a guy's jacket who is prostrate on the ground yaking every 10 minutes or so into the canal, but you know…).

Fortunately, behaviour this evening is far more civilised (when I think about it, I do work with animals really) and post meal most of us head back to T’s to continue the drinking.

The young couple from the neighbouring flat join us and are absolutely lovely, such open, generous souls, insisting their new optics are utilised to supply me with vodka (oh the way to this girl’s heart…). Conversations about festivals and holidays prompt them to open up their computer files and show me the most amazing collection of photos. These guys seriously know how to party. It’s like the opening titles to Human Traffic, with every photo of a group of caned revellers accompanied by the explanation “that’s J – he’s totally random”, “that’s S, she was seriously off her tits that night” or “that’s me with some Dutch blokes – not sure how we meet them”.

By the end of the evening I’m invited to A’s birthday party on Saturday.

It’s been a good many years since I spent time with people who lived life like this. Living for today and open to all comers and all experiences. I feel quite nostalgic and yes, just a little old.