Having survived the small trauma's of The Cat's 18th birthday bash at home, there was the 'grown-ups' event to contend with...this was the gathering of friends and family last weekend. we'd booked a room at Kettners, which is one of those places that is ideally suited for gatherings of this sort. Once more there was The Cat and eighteen others....this time The Cat's Mother and I were allowed to join in. It was a jovial evening of food wine, and song (supplied by an iPod plugged into the hotel's sound system) - the benefit of this was that we'd been able to instruct The Cat on the right sort of music. of course no gathering which is organised by The Cat's Mother (or indeed her sister, Lady Muffin) is complete without a quiz. In fact there were two quizzes One to put in age order photographs taken on or abouts The Cat's birthdays over the last eighteen years. I can tell you having UP on our team didn't help us. The second was a fairly random selection of general knowledge questions about The Cat and her life. Again I can't say that UP improved our score. What I can reveal is The Cat has had 23 driving lessons so far and has not yet put in for her written test...not that her driving instructor is aware of the latter fact. We rolled home late in the night in the back of a mini-coach taxi singing the sort of songs that would make a taxi driver blush...and did. Arriving home, at roughly 2.00 am, The Cat declared that as she was eighteen it was her right to go down the garage and buy some alcohol. She didn't care what sort of alcohol, it just had to be alcohol. It took us roughly half an hour to persuade her that there was no alcohol to be had at a garage at two in the morning, irrespective of her age. Disappointed she headed to bed.
Friday night was a birthday party of a different sort. Two of my fellow Olympic volunteers were celebrating. They'd organised it at a bar called The Sway in Covent Garden. as the Cat's Mother and I have commented on numerous occasions when we've walked past...it's for the young folk. No wonder I'd been in a dilemma about going along. On the one hand I wanted to see my friends, on the other i dreaded the experience. It was only after a stern telling off by The Cat's Mother that I was persuaded to go along. I crossed the boundary with a bouncer to my right and an Amazonian woman with the guest list to my left. Heading downstairs, I found that here were half a dozen bars there, each with a theme. Ours was the Milk bar, though how this differed from the Cream bar I'll never know. It was one of those places that has sparkly lights, mirrors everywhere and music loud you can't hear yourself think. Fortunately I quickly located friends one and all. We spent the next two hours smiling and nodding vigorously in agreement as each in turn tried to vocalise some thought. At that stage, I decided I'd done what I needed (and wanted to) and left, although not before taking a wrong turn and walking through a bar that was solely populated by two Go-Go dancers and one nearly dressed girl handing out lollipops. I headed home to a cup of tea and bed.