One way to the UK?

Well, Monday night I went out to dinner with some colleagues from the ODA which was very nice. I used to do a lot of work for them at Churchill Place (office) and so they invited me along to join them! There were eight of us out for drinks and dinner, and Cath and I being the only girls had to sit at either end of the table to ‘add intelligence to the conversations’ haha (not my words). So it was a really good mix of the Project Sponsor, two Project partners from Australia, some partners from a finance/consulting company, my boss’ deputy and Cath and I. The food at Fishworks was very good – I think I got all out-fished! Mussles for entree, lots of wine and Salmon for dinner. Oh and Cath and I managed to squeeze in a Creme Brulee for dessert too! I was chatting with my boss about how well everyone enjoyed the dinner etc, and he said it’s probably because he picks a good team by two criteria… are they clever, and could I spend an hour at the pub with them!

Speaking of wine earlier… Wednesday night was the big 2012 Christmas Party, only 600 tickets were made available so we got in quick! The event was held at Leadenhall Market, and included all free champagne, wine and beer, food and entertainment. We had japanese drummers, ice sculptures and magicians. The free alcohol went over well… almost too well actually. The champagne lady kept finding me, so lord knows how many glasses of the stuff I had as it was never allowed to be empty! Perhaps because she knew I was on the social committee… at one point I said no thanks, and her response was ‘oh there’s only a tiny bit left in the bottle, just have it’ and I didn’t want to start an argument haha. And then, once the champagne was out, the other good thing (?) about being one of the only females in my group is that the guys always make sure I have a drink or two in hand. Following the party at Leadenhall, where I took Margaret’s camera and proceeded to snap away at everyone (evidence for the next day), Alex, Abby (site colleagues) and I tried to get the last tube home, and literally missed it by about 30 seconds, so on exiting the tube station we also noticed our bus driving off and because the next one was 30 minutes away, we headed into Abacus a nightclub (i think!). Anyway just one drink turned into three rounds and lots of dancing, and I even got kinda caught up in some gay fellas fighting – I had a flashback yesterday at work remembering getting blood on my dress when one guy got punched in the face! Oh fun fun.

Speaking of yesterday – o0h what a painful day. I got home at 3am and crashed out to bed, then my alarm still went off at 7am – so I snoozed for one hour and then dragged myself out of bed and to work. I was lucky to arrive all fully clothed etc, etc and all I did for makeup was some new foundation as my eye liner from the night before was still on! haha. My bus was late too, so there was me standing in the rain (lost my umbrella at christmas party), clutching my bottle of water and leaning against the bus stop sign… ohh what did we do it on a weeknight for?! Needless to say the boys were all surprised I made it to work at all, as Dion knew what time I got home (i messaged him to say I got home ok at 3am; as requested cuz they think I’m going to get attacked all the time in East London) and yes… it was a funny morning. I am positive I was actually still drunk, not hungover yet. I found everything funny and was just laughing away to myself, and clicking away at my mouse whilst leaning over keyboard to see the screen clearly! Lucky no one had the camera around then! I didn’t even eat anything as I was too worried it would make me sick – especially when the tide changed and the hangover hit about 1pm. I’ve never been ‘conscious’ when a hangover has hit me, so it was a new experience (not to be repeated, don’t worry). So… I did pretty much no work, and then found out I had a ticked to the whole site Christmas do (which my team wasn’t allowed to go to), so I headed home, had a long shower, got dressed and then headed into the city for party 3 of the week! I met some more people that work on site (my team never meets anyone as we’re in the end of the office block) so that was fun and we danced for hours too. I was so surprised to see how many gay guys there are on site! My word, I never would have picked it. I think my Logistics team is the only team with all straight men or married men with kids! Not that I have anything against gay people, just that they don’t show it at all when at work.

I was on apple juice for most of the night, and then I only had three drinks and was drunk enough again, as it was just like topping up from Wednesday night!!! haha Glutton for Punishment!

Well tonight I’ve got farewell parties for my Aussie friends Mel, Vauny and Jade so that will be interesting. I think I’ll go on the juice again before my liver packs up and leaves home.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 11:34 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.