Inpursuitof

Picture the scene. A London restaurant on a Friday night. Me, my girlfriend, my girlfriend’s parents. Then chuck in my girlfriend’s ex, their parents, godmother and girlfriend. No, we weren’t at some sort of mediation for custody of the cats; the aforementioned in-laws were over for the first time in a couple of years and it was time for everybody to get together for a visit. Freaking weird, right? But not weird, too.

There’s no denying there was a little ripple of apprehension amongst the kids at the start, and a little ripple of it’ll-be-fine-it’ll-be-fine-it’ll-be-fine from the folks. After the first margharita, though (well, maybe the second), it was all fine.The ex’s girlfriend and I had a good ol’ chat about the reality-TV-worthiness of the evening. The pair of us were in the same Boat of Peculiar Situations and thankfully, she’s not a terrible shipmate.

Three hours, six bottles of wine, two espresso martinis later and we were bumbling our way home unscathed with our sanities intact. I’d rather not do it every weekend, but it left a surprisingly good taste in my mouth. It was a Band-Aid-Evening to the Weird Scab of Past Life Overspill. And it just might be good fodder for a film script…

1) Half a month’s travelcard to somebody in Haggerston. It wasn’t deliberate and I now need four years worth of paperwork to fix it.

2) Lani and Fuzzy

3) A guy who spotted me muttering angrily at the Bike Hire Station