Haley's stagette

I spent all day before Haley's stagette recovering from my work do the night before. I didn't drink loads but was out until 3ish and then got woken up at 8 by somebody texting!! So when I finally managed to get my butt off the couch, I had a shower, put my face on, did my hair and headed out to Bromley. We started out at the Ivory Lounge for drinks, nibbles and the usual games! It was loads of fun and we met some very bizarre people! We did the usual game where Haley's future hubby answered some questions which we then asked her. Every time she got one wrong she had to drink - let's just say she was probably feeling a little tipsy after that one! Then some more games and dares followed and we finished off with everybody's favourite - Have you ever. Most of us were slightly tipsy after that one!! Then off to Jazzmine's which is a nightclub (slightly dodgy one but that's kinda what you want for a stagette) for more drinks and dancing. About 2:30 or so we'd all had enough and jumped into cabs and headed home. Was a good night as I hadn't been to a stagette since my sister's 3.5 years earlier and we all know I won't be going to my own for a long time!!

Work Christmas Do

I've been with my new company, Omega, for 8 months but the difficulty is that our company is split up. There are 18-20 of us on the box in Lloyd's, another 10-15 at the office and then there's the executives who are never around. So for our party we had a seating plan which would mix us all up so we got to know and chat to people that we wouldn't normally see. I had a great table with some very funny people, some I knew and some I didn't. But of course ours ended up being the drinking table. So if you wanted shooters, ours was the table to be at! The meal for most was lobster to start, pheasant for their main and of course Christmas pudding to finish. But for me and a couple of other veggies was asparagus and hollandaise, an onion tart and apple crumble with ice cream. The meals were small which was good for those of us that had to squeeze into our dresses! When dinner, drinking and some very weird song was over, we headed off to Donovan's - a jazz bar not far away. It probably wasn't the best choice as quite a few people left after dinner and those of us who went on were in a room on our own with no music and not much in the way of drinks. Then somebody had the brilliant idea to go to a nightclub called Mahiki. I found out afterwards that it's the "place to be seen" and celebs such as Princes William and Harry go there quite frequently. Well....it was full of people that I would describe as 18 year olds who are clearly spending Daddy's money and are out to see how drunk they could get. It was not the place for me so me and two other guys headed back to our hotel. Our company is great, they paid for either a taxi home or a hotel room for the night. I opted for the hotel as there's nothing worse than 45 minutes in a taxi when you've had a few drinks (as Simon found out later). If I'd known I was going to stop drinking after the dinner, I'd have opted for the taxi as I had a hen night/stagette to go to the next day. Fabulous night and finally got to wear my new dress which I just managed to fit into!

Wine tasting

My friend Kat and her roommate had a wine tasting followed by a Christmas party way back on December 1st.

I showed up at Kat's at 5ish for the wine tasting which was tons of fun! There were two ladies who were teaching us all about wine, grapes, tastes and smells. There were probably about 15 people there in total and we all had a blast shouting out what we thought the wine tasted like and what it smelled like.

At about 8ish, once the wine tasting was over, the rest of Kat and her rooomie's mates showed up. We had loads of mulled wine and caught up with friends before I headed out just before 10 to make my train.

Unfortunately TFL lied about what time my trains left London Bridge and I found myself considering waiting 40 minutes for a train or catching a cab. As I looked around at all of the drunks at the station, my decision was clear! Get a cab! So 1/2 hour later I got to my house and crashed. Loads of wine and good times!!