My old friend Neil was in town for the afternoon, so I met up with him, went to the german market, ate bratkartoffeln with garlic sauce and pickled cucumber, and then wandered in search of home-made nougat while chatting about what we'd been up to and what movies we were looking forward to. It's nice to catch up with people even if I only see them very infrequently, and discover that we just slip into the same conversations we've been having since 1991.
The evening was spent chez
lizzie_and_ari, for their Christmas Whimsy, which was ever-so-much more relaxed than a full-on Christmas Party. We arrived about 7:30, left about 2:30, and drank most of a bottle of Baileys between Julie and myself. We lost badly at Scrabble, discussed whether the UK is a Christian Nation*, the different accents found around the country, and whether "I thought it was crack!" is a good excuse to use when your friends find out you tried heroin**. It was a jolly good time, and I don't think I've lasted that long at a party in, like, forever - largely because there was only about 10 people there for a lot of it, which is about the number of people I can cope with before I'm overcome with noise and stress and am unable to have a coherent conversation.Today we slept in until 12:30, watched a couple of episodes of season two of The Middle, and then wandered into town to have a friend breakfast at The City Cafe. Then on to Primark to find me some trousers, which we completely failed at***, and then into some of the cool shopping bits set up on Princes Street. The Ethical Fair was probably my favourite, even if we didn't buy anything. In fact it was a remarkably cheap trip, as Julie and I seem to have gone off buying lots of things. About the only thing I fancied was a 10" tablet, but as I'm not spending more than £120 on what is basically a comic-reader, the high-street is not my friend.
And then home, where I caught up on oodles of internet backlog, and posted this****.
Next up, looking at the paperwork for applying for one of the promotions at work. And then dinner!
Meantime, have a video about the post-modern shopping experience:
via
*Tip: It depends very much on what you mean by "Christian Nation".
**Tip: No.
***I would very much like whoever decided that button-flies were in this year to fuck right off.
****Well, by the time you read this, unless you're currently standing behind me watching me type it*****.
*****And frankly that would just be creepy, unless you're
meaningrequired.Original post on Dreamwidth - there are
