Half a life ago…

The Thursday night before Good Friday the year I was 17 I went out to Brighton for the evening with a friend and a group of her friends. I was in a rather wobbly emotional state at the time for various compounded reasons and thought a good night out would cheer me up / make me forget.

The plan was to go to the pub, go on to a nightclub ( I think it was called The Lancaster although I could be wrong, it might even still be there. It was very dark and smoky but had pinprick holes on the dance floor where twinkly lights showed through), then when the club shut at 2am go to an all night cafe for breakfast and then catch the first train home in the morning. I was working at 11am on the Good Friday but regularly went without sleep for a night back then in favour of socialising :).

I wore a thin black jumper, thick black tights, black DM boots and a pair of black shorts that looked like a pleated black mini skirt. Depsite it being only Easter (and I’m pretty sure it was an early March Easter that year too) and bloody freezing I wouldn’t have worn a coat because I don’t think I possessed one.

We did the pub and club part of the plan, got drunken on snakebite and black and then wandered the streets of Brighton for about two hours in search of the All Night Cafe that I came to believe was merely a myth and never actually existed at all. The kebab shops shut at 3am and we decided to go to the station to wait for the first train home in the end, all dreams of bacon sandwiches and hot strong tea out of chipped mugs dashed and forgotten. We discovered that the first train the next morning wouldn’t be til about 830am as it was bank holiday hours but there was a train waiting in the station so we thought we could sleep on that. We’d just got comfortable when a guard arrived and chucked us off.

I recall trying to curl up to sleep on one of red metal bucket style chairs on the platform, pigeons cooing overheard before we got kicked out of the station too as they were closing it for the night. By now it was about 430am, I was very cold, very tired, rapidly sobering and due at work the next day. I was fragile anyway and just wanted to go home. So I got a taxi!

That was exactly (more or less ;)) half my life ago. Tonight, aged 34 the Thursday before Good Friday I found myself in Brighton for the evening again. Only this time I drove, had a clear plan for the evening of going to see Richard Herring do stand up and knew exactly how I would be getting home. I am in a rather better emotional state, although these days I probably couldn’t afford a nighttime taxi home from Brighton ;). However I was still not wearing a coat and instead of my sensible DMs I was wearing the highest heels I own. Now I often wear these boots when I go out of an evening, which is very infrequently but what I’d failed to think through was that usually going out of an evening means I don’t need to drive or walk anywhere and I can cling to Ady’s arm to keep me upright in them. Tonight I did have to drive, and walk and had no arm so I did a wobble instead. I made the most of it as despite the boots being very nice to look at for most of the evening they were hidden under the table I sat at so the only time anyone had the chance to see them was when I was wobbling in them. Sadly I don’t think Brighton’s nightlife was either interested or impressed by them. Brighton – always lets you down like that the Thursday night before Good Friday, even if you leave a 17 year gap! 😆

This morning I was woken way too early by rowdy children. I’d not gone to bed til nearly 2am and then read my book til nearly 3am so getting up before about 9am wasn’t really on my agenda. Once up I did sewing of capes onto T shirts, let Scarlett lose with the fabric pens on her cape and then went to do some baking. I made various biscuits and a chocolate cake to take to my parents house tomorrow. Davies and Scarlett came and helped with some of the baking and all of the licking of chocolate cake mixture spoons :). We had lunch and they watched an Enchanted Wood dvd I’d brought home (which looked really rather surreal). I’d just started to read a bit more of Famous Five to them as I wouldn’t be around for bedtime stories when Dad arrived.

I headed off to work for my mini 2.5 hour shift which went even quicker as I was given a 15 minute teabreak in that time, which as I went with my boss and we got chatting was probably closer to 25 minutes :lol:.

I dashed home and had time to sort the kids’ tea out, have a quick tidy up and get ready to go out before Ady arrived home. I had a great evening, really nice to be out doing something utterly selfish, laugh lots and enjoy being a grown up.