Halloween night, damsels in distress and knights in shining armour
Last thursday I stayed out later than usual, it was Sonja's (sonya to you) last day in our lab before she flew off to calmer climes in Lake Constance at the base of germany and she wanted to go out with a bang (will ignore obvious tasteless puns which spring to mind). But it was a very dignified and stately night out we had, we watched Donny Darko at the Trocadero and sat through two hours of american scary weirdness - thanks, Jonathan Ross for hyping it up beyond belief, it wasn't
that good... and then we trotted out to Old Street, where, according to one of the 'crew' there were 'loads' of trendy bars to hang out at. Unfortunately as we were mostly over 25 (years old) we were quite keen on having something to eat before going out on some drinking 'binge'. and as you can probably guess, these bars didn't really incorporate serving food, and as none of knew the Old Street area all that well - other than it being the murder capital of London, we were kind of stuck. Poor Sonja (who's a mere 24) who was all up for just munching on a bag of crisps in the middle of some dark crowded bar floor with accompanying loud blary music must have thought we were such a bunch of old fogeys! we ended up trotting back over to Angel Islington to eat in Candid cafe - one of the sweetest and coolest cafes in London, and we got there approximately 30 minutes before closing time, because they are a non-alcoholic establishment. so we sat, chowed, and half an hour later had to move on again, wandering up Upper street (losing two of us who wanted to go home on the way) until settling down at our final destination at the King's Head, a pub which seemed to have come from victorian times - like when Jack the Ripper was wandering the streets. It was light and bright, full of bawdy revellers swinging around pints of beer, and a live band consisting of a man dressed as a pirate of some description playing a guitar and a small woman similarly dressed playing a harpsichord, he seemed to be singing sea shanties or gypsy type shanties of some sort. We sat, we drank, we consumed vast quantities of crisps, during which the german contingency in our group were introduced to the illicit pleasures of the prawn cocktail. And thus I also found out that Walkers crisps are like some kind of rare exotic import in germany, only to be found in irish pubs, and even then only in salt 'n' vinegar or cheese 'n' onion. we also spent some time discussing how old one of our colleagues (who wasn't present) might be, amongst other pivotal subjects. and as the night wore on and approached the 1 o'clock in the morning hour, 5 became four, became three. Ordinarily i would have left at about midnight to catch the last tube home, but because it was Sonja's last night and she was anxious to get sloshed, I stayed until chucking out time. When we waited together at the bus top, me, her and Cory, and it was really time for goodbye, tears started creeping down her cheeks, and surprised i looked away. Not to sound like a cold hearted bitch, I also hugged her briefly, before we got on the bus, and then once more, when she got off and I would have to continue my journey on home alone.
we had left the bus at 1am, but by the time the bus trundled up to my home station, it was 3 am. but i wasn't worried, as i had my bicycle, on which it would take me three seconds to get back home. Unfortunately, to my dismay I found out my bike had been attacked by some unknown thug, and so the back wheel wasn't turning and the pedals were stuck. being me, I thought it was a chain problem and spent probably 5-10 minutes struggling trying to put the chain back on straight. I was thinking to myself, right just
one more minute, and then I'll definitely walk home, just
one more minute... but I wasn't relishing the thought of the 15 minute walk home at this time of night, when lo! Two delivery men in a white van who stopped by to drop off the day's Metro newspaper at the station and asked me if I was OK. naturally I said: 'Uerh, I
think so...' whilst yanking impotently at the greasy bicycle chain, and before you could say 'Donnie Darko' the man lept out of his van, flipped my bike over and started trying to reinstall the chain. after much tugging and pushing he managed to do it, but alas the wheel appeared to be off line or something, but even luckier still the other guy fished out a spanner from within their van and without preamble started to fix the bike! after much turning of cogs, wotsits and whatyoumaycallits, during which he'd fiddled with the gear changing thingy, he had officially fixed the bike so it was as if new. they must have spent almost 10 minutes on it, and no words can describe how grateful I am for their help, it is nice to know that in this world where so much bad stuff happens, there's still a bit of good stuff and good people around. Thank you
so much guys. When I got home 5 seconds later, I went straight to bed, and sent them lots of karmic good wishes and spells.
