Friends in low places

Friday afternoon, it’s the start of a Bank holiday weekend and everyone is out and about ready for a big one.  There is a music festival starting tonight which is happening just by work. All week long I've been conscious of the traffic chaos that the big event will cause and had planned to take the motorway instead. When Friday finally arrives I forget all about it and there I am sitting in traffic listening to My Bloody Valentines.

As I pass by several groups of festival goers in such a party mood I try to figure out what feels more painful; the fact that I’m scheduled to work Saturday to Monday or the sore flu that has just hit my body. It takes me over one hour to get home and to finally have the best feeling of the day as I collapse into the sofa watching crap TV. The city is bubbling with things to do but I still have zero plans for the next few days except working from 7am to 3pm the whole weekend including the bank holiday. I take two flu tablets and soon I drop off.  

My husband is at a stag party in Las Vegas with another eight lads partying, betting, messing around and calling me drunk at 3am, not once but three times, making sure I don’t fall asleep again. For the next few hours I roll in bed sneezing and struggling to breathe until I decide that I’m not going to feel sorry for myself for the rest of the weekend. In no time I’m on WhatsApp chatting away with my Brazilian friends that are starting to get drunk on the other side of the world. No serious talk, just gossip and girly nonsense stuff. We chat about little secrets until it’s time to get out of bed.

As I imagined, work hurts more than the flu but at least I have some nice company around. It takes only 10 minutes for all the girls at the office to organize a happy hour after work and immediately I convince myself that I’m feeling much better. The clock ticks slower than usual in every watch I see but eventually it hits three o’clock and we are all out of the door.  

Dame Lane on a warm summer night

How can girls find so many subjects to talk about even when they have lunch together five days in a row? The truth is that at the pub it’s a totally different atmosphere and we share all our intimate secrets without inhibition, especially the most senior of the group -“Little Pony”, who is also the shortest, hence her nickname - as she really gets into the story telling us way too much of personal stuff. We end up begging her to stop: “Eew, less information please!” 

But the night gets even more exciting when the single one, who we call "Super Star", arrives. She’s dressed to kill and I can only hope she will make it through the night in her 10 inch heels. Very quickly all of us are hunting on her behalf and pointing out guys. We all miss those days of freedom, a single girl just adds a bit of spice to the group. As my husband says, “we look but don’t touch” all around and laugh at each other’s taste. After one pint too many I realize what time it is. How could it pass so quickly? I leave drunker than I’d planned but it was worth it. These simple moments are exactly what I treasure in life!