Jo and I made it in one piece, without any knitting needles embedded anywhere upon our person, and only slightly late, to Waxy O'Conners where I'd booked a little area to fill with all my favourite people on my birthday.
As we bimbled down the stairs we met the Steve who had been hanging around for at least half an hour already, and we made our way over to the little booked area where a couple of guys I didn't know sat looking sheepish.
I'd been quite anxious to get there on time, when you book an area you never know how long the establishment will wait for the first guest to turn up before they lose faith and open it up to the 'ugh' general public. You KNOW that as the person who booked it, you have to be there somewhat on time because your guests don't want to be the first people to arrive.
Turn up 20 minutes late and what you'll find is clusters of your friends hovering around the periphery of the 'booked zone', as if there's some kind of inpenetrable forcefield surrounding it.
So Jo and I dragged Stevie through the forcefield and plonked ourselves down, the two interlopers left pretty soon, they could probably feel the force radiating off of me as I prepared to ask them to scarper. The next people to turn up were Wilf and his mate Beck, and Norm.
I tell a wee lie, we knew that Kyle was somewhere in the building, he had been deflected even further by the aforementioned forcefield...to the point where we couldn't actually locate him! Not entirely our fault, this place is labyrinthine and when I went looking I soon lost all faith in my meagre sense of direction and returned, tail between legs, to wait for him to find us. Find us he did and we had a little crowd forming.
Vicky and her blokie Dan turned up next. As you probably guessed, the buying of drinks had started immediately upon arrival, and from the word go I was never without a pint in hand and another ready on the table! So when Dan asked if I'd like another drink and I indicated my next pint ready to go, he asked if I'd like a short. I didn't want to be rude now did I?? I asked for a sambuca....one shot....I can deal with that. Fine.
By the end of the evening I'd had 5 sambuca (3 care of Dan and 2 care of some lovely ladies I'll mention in a minute) and one shot of tequila...care of Clara). How am I still alive?
Then Kayleigh and Tom arrived, gagging for some foodage, they both ordered chicken burgers. They took a while to arrive, but when they did! I don't think I've seen a burger that huge in my entire life!!
Wilf and Beck sidled off after one drink, I can't say I blame them, they'd been out wandering in the rain and had come from a nice quiet restaurant into a loud blaring bar full of loud blaring people. Thank you guys very much for coming if you're reading this, it was great to see you there :)
The music in the place I must say was excellent, very poppy/rocky and very easy to dance to, just my thing!! Just as well, if I hadn't been dancing I think those shots would have knocked me right out. Everyone else turned up at almost the same time at about ten o'clock or maybe a bit later. I'd just said hi to Mark, Clara and Leney when Nicki tapped me on the shoulder, she'd arrived with Helen and Harry...and most importantly....my BIRTHDAY CAKE! There was a stir of excitement as she placed it on the table and went to remove the cover:
Oh yes...just what we need in an Irish pub :D. I managed to mutilate it before we did the whole candle-blowing-out thing, much to Nicki's disgust.....it was blimmin delicious! Sponge and jam, nom nom nom!!!! What a fab icing job though eh people?
Of course, you always get your characters on a night out. We had the 2 drunken Irish 'Party Police' as they called themselves, who harrassed us at various points in the evening. I threw them out when one came onto Nicki, but they came back later after I'd invited a gaggle of girlies into the area. They'd been standing and dancing outside of the forcefield and they seemed a laugh so I invited them in. By this point in the evening the rest of the bar was packed and my mates and I were enjoying an oasis of relative peace and calm in the centre, so I thought they'd benefit too. These were the lovely ladies who bought me 2 sambucas in thanks for letting them in. Bless! I invited them to join in the blowing out of candles and singing happy birthday seeing as they were also celebrating 2 birthdays.
The picture takers of the evening were Steevie, and the 'official' photographer Norman :). I've yet to see Norms pics, and I'll add some here when I do, but as you can see from Steves pics.....they witnessed some fun and games as the evening wore on!
When we got thrown out of the place at midnight most people went home, Jo and I carried on briefly to a bar somewhere (I canny remember the name) where we had a few more drinks and talked to innocent victims about knitting. We then proceeded to sleep all the way home on the nightbus and then attack Western Fried Chicken at about 4am......it was a good night, oh yes.
Thank you to absolutely everyone who came along and made my birthday drinks so wicked, love to you all :o)
Yes. Good fun was had by all.
ReplyDeleteTop night for a top chick :)
xxx