much laterz

There really isn’t a positive way of seeing a weekend late on a Sunday evening, it’s cruelty personified. A weekend from this perspective isn’t so much as what has been gained, it’s more of a question of what has been taken away.

 

The weekend is snatched in stages from the moment one leaves work on a Friday afternoon. You go out with your heart full of the anticipation of the two-day break but mid way through Friday evening you’re already thinking about Saturday’s objectives. On Saturday when I’ve finished the afternoon shopping, usually after having squandered the morning, the relief that I’ve attained my objective also signals the death knell for the weekend itself. So one focuses on the Saturday night that invariably involves more memory-sapping activity, and the Sunday to come, which has, of course, been rendered virtually useless by Saturdays hedonism. Before you know it your staring into the chasm of another bastard week at work.

 

The very fact I actually had a good weekend means fuck all on a Monday morning.

 

It began by meeting up with Swineshead at a pub in Clapham Common, despite my recent moans about the onset of autumn it was a beautiful evening so we sipped beers in the fading light in the concrete garden discussing writing, rock and real estate. At around 8-ish we went our separate ways, SH back to his home in the East End whilst I walked down Clapham High Street to meet Myfwt and some of her colleagues in a bar under the railway arches by Clapham North Tube.

 

I lived in Clapham for a good 5 years and am still very fond of the place, it has a unique vibe that feels more New York than London, there are so many restaurants and bars that compliment each other rather than openly vie for business, one can eat and drink the world in less than a quarter of a mile, Clapham has a splendid symbiotic relationship with itself. Walking down the street to the bar I felt suddenly very at home and wished I were still living in the area. Of course Clapham has peaked somewhat since I lived there, its streets are cleaner, safer and a lot more fashionable, a fact reflected in the prices of the scarcely available property.

 

Myfwt was on good form having drunk about the same as I, and her colleagues were very engaging. After a few more beers we wondered back up the street to a lively Mexican restaurant; I drunkenly opted for beer chilli, which was served in a humongous top hat shaped tortilla. It was a hot dish, I was even aware of the price I’d pay on Saturday as I tucked in. We went off to another pub by Clapham Common where it seemed to be okay to smoke out of the open window on the top floor. It wasn’t okay; I was threatened with having to pay a fine by a huge square faced bar ‘maid’, I protested, everyone else was smoking out the window, I said before realising that I was the last smoker standing and was forced to back down.

 

Myfwt and I got home at 1-ish and I stoically had another beer before realising that I’d drunk at least ten pints and was thoroughly pissed, I went to bed at 2 or so. We both woke with hangovers; mine not as harsh as Myfwt as she’s been drinking wine as well as beer and we lay in bed watching re-runs of Tales of the Unexpected. It was a perfect way to suffer a hangover, a round of bacon and watercress sandwiches, 4 cups of tea and a big slow boiling hot trog saw me as right as rain.

 

I made a deal with Myfwt that if I drove her to her workplace in my van to pick up her car she’d help me with the shopping. Due to Roald Dahl’s tales we were running very late and the Saturday traffic on the streets made progress terribly slow. This wasn’t good; I’d made plans to meet an old mate at my place for 5 and by 4.45, after an hour and a half drive before discovering that we’d missed the deadline to get Myfwt car out the pound, (cue moderated scream) I still hadn’t done the fucking shopping. I texted my mate to inform him I was running late.

 

Without much of a choice the shopping obligation was undertaken at some pace. Myfwt was still hungover which slowed things somewhat. She has this habit of wandering off in the other direction to investigate something that has caught her eye, just at the very moment I’m in full OCD mode gathering together essentials and beating a path for the till she’s to be found half a superstore away eyeing up the label of a tin of Olives stuffed with Anchovy. Despite all this I was back at the flat by 6, Myfwt wasn’t up for another session so sensibly decided to go back to hers, though I’d have rather she’d have stayed.

 

I met Ted at mine at 6, Ted is an art therapist, we’ve known each other for over 20 years, he now lives in East Anglia so it had been a while, he and I wandered off to the local meeting Rob on the street on the way. Rob runs a comic shop of some note in the South East (I’ve known him for yonks too) and he and Ted go back further than Ted and I so we made a dynamic triple. We were supposed to have been joined by Frank, James and Jamie but due to illness, a dissertation and x they were unable to make it. We three caught up over some ales in a crowded beer garden, the pub had just played host to the rugby so the place was full of pissed up hooray aw-ha-ha cunts.

 

After a few and some hilarious geek related comic shop anecdotes that have been blurred into the ether, we shuffled off to the Shawarma shop where Rob and Ted were introduced to the delights of Lebanese cuisine. We made it home and stuffed our maws with a couple more cans before trying to get to sleep; this wasn’t as easy as it sounds due to a minor encounter with mirror medicine a few hours earlier.

 

I had barely 5 hours sleep. Ted and Rob left in the morning I busied myself with a shit load of washing and the dyeing of a green hoodie which needs to be black, it was a long messy process but the result excellent. I ate breakfast with the Moto GP, then switched over to the British Superbikes which was a lot more fun than the former. Rossi basically gave the championship away to Casey Stoner by coming back into the pits following a change from wets to slicks to moan about the front tyre, which was obviously not up to race temperature yet. Nonetheless Casey deserved his championship.

 

I taped the final race as it was time for me to mount my black bitch and head off out to see my niece. The ride is just the right amount of time to feel the benefits of a fucking good spin; I ignored the blustering wind and headed out to the country. The little one has a bit of a sniffle and can’t quite work out how to cough yet, she’s also on the brink of laughing but due to the same reason she can’t cough, she can’t laugh. She has, however, discovered that she fucking loves having a bath. As soon as she’s in the water she’s pink blur of foam. I shot back home to watch the end of the racing and settled in for the evening, I wrote the first half of this, ate roast chicken and abstained. My weekend closed almost as it had begun by watching a load of Tales of the Unexpected before hitting the hay.

 

My catch up nights sleep was compromised by waking up at fucking 5am, I fell asleep eventually but when I woke up at 8 I could hear the rain and wind lashing against the window. Fuck it, I’m having day off I decided. This is why Piqued is late and why I’m going to spend the rest of the day playing Tomb Raider in my Yukata.

 

I wished I’d have known I was going to spend the day in here, could’ve saved you all the moaning at the beginning. Oh well.

Enjoy, actually this is fucking ace…