Out

It’s lovely to see T and E again and one of their friends plus T’s cousin bring our happy band to seven. We meet up in the Bar (it took the owners a long time to come up with that name) and then made our way round the pubs and bars of Chorlton.

Personally I could have lived without the country and western band in the Royal Oak (made even more surreal by When Will I Be Famous running silently on the large screen next to us – curiously limber brother and sister acts on roller skates accompanied by C&W is one irony step too far for me I’m afraid).

These things matter little however, when you’re with people who are just so perfect for nights out drinking; the conversation flows freely and the laughter even more so (the fact that alcohol was flowing similarly unhindered may have helped).

Walking back to the Dog Collars and Rabbit Corpses house, (via the obligatory kebab joint), it felt like we were regressing into our youth. Laughing uncontrollably and then shushing each other and trying to remember that at gone 2am it’s possible that the local residents might just possibly be sleeping. N needed to pee and disappeared into the grounds of a certain building, only to reappear, catching us up, by hurdling over the hedgerows.

Then my phone rings and it’s K, oldest of my ‘favourite nieces’.

“Well at least you answer your phone which is more than either of my parents!”

Oooops!

“They were supposed to be back by 12.30am.”

“Errr aren’t they the ones that set you curfews rather than the other way round?”

“Yes, but they haven’t got their keys with them, so I’m having to wait up.”

Double oooops!

We skulk in, to rolled eyes from K and share a night cap before calling for a cab.

I think it was about 3.30am before I got home. Emptying my pockets I had another flashback to drunken student days of yore: how come I went to the cash machine and took out £80 and I’ve only got a tenner left. And come to think of it, where did that bruise on my arm come from?

Still at least I can lie in, in the morning, whereas one amongst us was going to have to be up and out in 4 hours time to preach a sermon.

You may now all join with K in rolling your eyes.