Bruce's journal (original) (raw)

Whee, aren't double weekends great?

I spent the first weekend (Fri/Sat) with Mark (Felder) and Neil (Harlequeen). Mark's just got a new job much closer to home and we'd not gotten together in quite sometime, so there was lots of eating and drinking and being happy at one another - which is just perfect in my book.

Thursday night was Thai and champagne, Friday was a long walk around Richmond Park (during which I got quite lost - but we saw lots of deer in the end, anyhow), beer on the Green, curry in Fitzrovia and cocktails at the Texas Embassy and Saturday was a long, lazy start (watching the Oxford/Cambridge Boat Race) followed by food and beers in Ben Crouch's Tavern again and wound up in the theatre bar of West Central (probably the only gay pub I'd go into out of choice).

Having said goodbye to them at Leicester Sq tube station (Mark had a riding lesson booked for Sunday), I decided to walk home. To Richmond. For those of you who don't know enough about London, that's ten to twelve miles. It was a lovely walk by moonlight, mostly along the Thames, and a good reminder that I'm not reliant on cars and trains and that there's value in breaking your routine once in a while. And I wouldn't have got to see the wild foxes if I hadn't walked.

The token act of geekery was in the Texas Embassy - we'd dropped in for cocktails and Mark was after a Purple Hooter (the long version, not the shooter). He'd been plied with them over a year previously in America but couldn't for the life of him remember what was in it. Unfortunately, neither could the barman at the Embassy. Refusing to be beaten, out came Mark's WAP-enabled phone and, after a couple of false starts, we ordered our Purple Hooters - which I have to say taste exactly like alcoholic Ribena.

Anyway, my second weekend (Sun/Mon) is going to be spent cleaning the house and doing laundry and all the other things I've not been getting around to for weeks - which will also make me happy, once it's all done. You know, I think we should have the Easter break more often - monthly, at least.