This last week has really been almost a bizarre time warp taking me back to my younger days, and without me really even trying.
It all started last Saturday, going to my friends moving in party ( vis-a-vee earlier blog ).
Bumping into people that I have known for years all in one place and yet again going over the age old great conversations like which was the best / favourite python movies, complete with impromptu sketches reenacted for everyones mutual amusement, it was as if the years had been stripped back.
Sunday was off to the cinema with Leigh and the rest of the crowd, that again I have known since junior school. Pirates of the Caribbean was again an old style film, with no sci-fi elements to remind you it is modern day.
Next came work. Now almost everyone has the occasional moan about their job, but looking on the honest side my work is so very relaxed about most things that I should feel very glad to be working for them.
Being able to wonder into work a few minutes late, grab some breakfast and chat aboutt lastt nights tv this week just didnt feel like work, but like college. It may have been that I have now got to a stage in my career where it has reached a plateau and regardless of my bosses constant reminders I can easily go in and get on with my daily routine without any prompting for an entire week.
But wearing years old shirts, eating tea and toast at my desk and chatting to the rest about the cinema over the weekend just didnt feel like work. The feeling at work continued with me arriving late and noone saying a word, and by Friday I was in such a confort zone that I forgot to shave and only a few people even made jokes.
Thursday was my own barbeque, and having given plenty of notice to everyone I was glad that around twenty people turned up. I had left work early and had enough time to buy all the food and drink, set up the marquis ( which broke due to its extremely flimsy design ), light the barbeque and grab a shower before the first guest arrived.
During the barbeque my family had turned up as well as my oldest group of friends there, and with it being in the garden during the cool twilight it just felt like the many parties of my older sisters that I went to growing up.
Also the conversation at times revolved around wargaming and models, which was yet another link to my past that I will never forget.
I made a good show and actually managed to run out of food, which was a first and as I did not burn or drop a single item of food in the embers, must have shown that my outdoor cooking has improved no end ... either that or I managed to find a group of starving people intent on eating me out of house and home, ha ha.
Also Cherly was one of the few people from the barbeque that were not of the usual crowd she has seen me in a totally diffferent light, mucking around with my old mates and all that that involves she had seen a totally different side to me ( as I knew she would ).
I always say that to really know me you have to meet me in lots of different situations and that I can still suprise someone years after they first met me, and equally that it is only at barbeques and DIY where my strong masculine / dominant side come out.
Thus, although of course there is nothing sexual between us, me and Cheryl had become closer through the mutual experience, though I was still not expecting what happened afterwards - being yesterday.
I also agree with Spider Robinson 100% that you can tell an awful lot about a person by watching them laugh. Not in a giggle, chortle or snicker, I mean a real go-for-it-side-aching-belly-rolling-on-the-floor-eyes-crying-with-tears belly laugh.
From me, it is the ultimate moment of tension release and only my closest friends can bring it out of me. Many have tried and come close, and I might give them a brief taster so to speak, but I do reserve the complete works for trusted friends only.
And then finaly came last night, which was planned as a quick drink with Cheryl that fast turned into an entire evening with her. We met up in London and wanted to try and find a different place to eat, so we started chatting and just wandered around til we found a place she recognised.
Cheryl for some reason has a very limited number of foods that she likes to eat - the opposite to me which is to try anything and everything ( well ALMOST anything ) - so finding a new venue to eat wasn't quite as easy as it sounds.
After a brief bit of late night shopping, where I somehow got lumbered with carrying her bag, we bought a few bits for her nephew. Being dragged into a few ladies clothing stores I could almost not resist the temptation to drop into my "gay hairdresser" pseudo character .. I mean, she doesnt fancy me and I WAS carrying her purse, so why not use the promps that I was given, ha ha.
We ended up visiting three places to eat before we found a great little spanish restaurant that had food she would eat, yet sadly our desire to get drunk together had been scuppered due to lack of alcopops or Archers at any of the places we came across to try and eat at.
Because she has seen more of my overall personality last night, I decided to softly nudge a bit more of her background from her - fully expecting her to balk or shift the conversation but instead it was like the flood gates opening and suddenly we were in a coffee shop debating if we should get the second to last or last train home.
As she has ground-hog in the morning it was the second to last train, though having said that we still continued, albeit slightly muted for the general public, and even once we got back to her place and her mum came in the door we were still going strong. Then out came the photos and I was in danger of talking through the night, so I had to draw a line in the sand and make a graceful goodnight.
I came home at 1.30am and soon was fast asleep, the end of a long and eventful week that had so many shades of me being a young teenager again that it wasn't scary ... it was full on reliving.
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