Monday update

Sigh… another week… A slightly heavier weekend than I’ve experienced for a wee while and the addition of my winter, 13.5 tog duvet and clean sheets to my bed meant that dragging myself from under the increased weighty warmth was even more of a repellent prospect this morning.

Still, miraculously I made it – and managed to reach my office without significant incident. Last Friday I spent the entire journey from Hammersmith to work on the tube sitting next to a large(ish) spider which was absolutely paralysing – I couldn’t pick it up and was too embarrassed to ask anyone else to move it, and it just sat there cleaning its legs and not walking very far for approximately forty minutes. Every now and then it made a start as if setting off on an expedition, at which point I would try to shuffle away from it a tad, while trying to maintain a commuter-friendly distance from the passenger to my right, but mostly it just sat there, while I sat looking at it, listening to my iPod and convinced that if I even looked away for a nano-second it would run up the sleeve of my coat and I would have a heart attack and die.

I had a delightful weekend – a few drinks post-work with Laura and a couple of others on Friday to carry on the birthday festivities, and then an evening of love on Saturday to celebrate Suzannah’s engagement to Jack. A few of us from our choir went along to croon a selection of cheesy numbers and get the party in the mood but pre-performance sight-reading is never too good for my singing ego and personally I think we might have benefited from a fraction more rehearsal. Ultimately, however, no one was really listening as they were all waiting for the rugby to start and panicking that we were going to start singing Mozart’s C Minor Mass and force them to stand up interminably.

After our songs had been sung, the choir contingent visibly relaxed, arranged ourselves by the canapé release area for the richest pickings, drank more than our fair share of Champagne and sang along noisily and (unbearably) in harmony to Uptown Girl – so strange how that always seems so funny when I’m with choir people and yet, just hours later, can send me into paroxysms of shame and regret.

After the party, I trotted back to Hammersmith to catch the last bus home but, despite my inebriation, was still stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of the station’s newest artery fattenerr. Words fail me when I look at their sign. Oven & Grilled Snack Bar? Is that like a roasted Tracker? Or have they put the entire eaterie under the grill? Or does the ‘Oven & Grilled’ not refer to the snack bar? In which case, to what is it referring? Not the coffee? Do they grill coffee now? I know I shouldn’t care. I know that I especially shouldn’t care after midnight and many glasses of Champagne. But I did, and I do, and that’s the way it is.

Yesterday I remembered what it was like to wake up the morning after drinking way, way too much alcohol. I had a very gentle day featuring a lovely lunch at Katherine’s flat and then fell asleep watching a Bob Dylan documentary on BBC4. Perfect.