Pride comes before a fall….oh yes!!!

17th May 2008

It’s always a dilemma for me…heels or not?  My knees are so bad that I know that I really shouldn’t attempt to totter around London on 3inch heels, but when you are ‘lunching’ you REALLY can’t wear timberlands and jeans….its just not the done thing dahling!  you just never know who you may bump into.  After all….Carrie et al are in town (Sex and the City!)

I really did hum and aah, about what exactly to wear for comfort and in the end opted for what I, in my mature wisdom deemed to be appropriate attire……not too high…not too dressy for daytime, but would still look good in the evening….high black, slim fitting boots.   A very good choice.  Teamed with a very slim…very tight black pencil skirt, black jumper (a la Jayne Mansfield!!!) and my favourite sassy little swing back, yellow jacket.   I think it looks striking and chic but i’m sharply bought back to earth with the frightening reality that I could actually look like a large bumble bee, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window at the station.  ‘A glimpse is more revealing than a stare’    How bloody true!!! 

At the station I miss the train by minutes due to the dodgy knee crisis, and have 15 minutes to wait for the next one, so decide that i’ll have a coffee and ‘brunch’…..a yummy bag of healthy seeds….oooh, don’t want to spoil my lunch now do I!  I’m complimented by the very nice young man serving “If only I was 20 years older” he quips as i’m about to leave….yes, in your dreams….5 is more like it.   He’s much closer to my age than he’s admitted….well either that, or he really hasn’t worn too well.   Now I come to think of it, maybe his compliment was too much of a compliment after all…..DAMN!!

Why is everything more complicated for me?  Is it just me?  I just have to get to Waterloo station.  I have 90 minutes to get there.  Should be ample time.  Well it should have been if I hadn’t got on the wrong tube!!  well not actually the wrong tube, but the wrong direction. I didn’t actually realise that the Northern line went in two directions from where I had to get on it….and I was busy listening to the Zutons at the time and completely disorientated and had gone 3 stops more than necessary before actually noticing!   I did get some quite odd stares as i was stuffing my ipod into my bra.  Well there’s nowhere else to put it and its hardly going to fall out of there, and it does fit very snuggly 😉   That was after using the reverse of it as a mirror to apply more lipgloss……..I’m such a tart at times…lol!!!      Oh it was a nightmare.  I had to get of at Euston station and then get on the bloody Northern line again.  You would think there would only be ‘one’ nothern line…..but no…..it splits into 2…..

Had it not have been for this act of ridiculous engineering on the part of London Transport….I would actually have been on time.   As it was, I was late.  Again.  40 minutes to be precise.  There were steps…..lots of steps….and I don’t do steps 😦 

We had a luke warm glass of wine at Waterloo, served in a plastic wine glass….apparently we were lucky to get it in a wine glass at all.  Previously it had been served in a half pint glass….plastic too.  Nice.  You just can’t beat the class you get at a British Rail station….they could teach those french a thing or two…..;-)

It was the taxi drivers fault that we ended up at the Jumeirah Cadogan Hotel.  He suggested that we went to the bar there and had cocktails before lunch because we should see the floor in the bar.  What kind of girls did he take us for!!!  Anyway we took his advice but then realised he was obviously on some kind of backhander…..the ‘bar’ wasn’t actually open.  Although the restaurant was….for champagne!!!!!   oh yessssssssssss   2 bellinis and 2 pink champagnes please……downed in no time.   God knows what we talked about, but I’m not sure whether Dawn actually got a word in!    It appeared that we were the only Europeans in this hotel…..It also appeared that we were the only ones having any fun too!   

Motcombs is a short stroll away and I was assured that the food there was fantastic…..oooh thank God for that because its now 5.30 and I’m feeling a bit squiffy to say the least!  We had to walk past Christian Louboutin and it would have been a sin not to go in…….I lovingly caressed most of the shoes….actually, if i could have got away with licking the patent ones i think i might have had a go…..they ooozed sexiness.   But i’ve never been arrested, and I wasn’t about to go into that fantasy world right now…..although, hmmm…sexy policeman in uniform….mischief springs to mind!!  Maybe…just maybe!!  Bad girl…VERY bad 😉  Now I do have a sexy policeman friend….I think I might just have to give him a call…………………………………………………………………………………….

Made it out of the shop in one piece, with no shoes in my bag…purse still intact and tongue still in my mouth!  Motcombs is opposite…..pink champagne awaits!   There’s a fantastic group of people outside, singing and laughing and having fun.  Its really funny to watch them, especially one of them as she’s so drunk and is having difficulty walking straight but is so desperately trying to be correct and remain dignified!  

At 7.00 pm  we decide to go to Harvey Nicholls restaurant and get some food….for lunch!!!   I’m very drunk now…..I’m trying to walk straight and remain dignified.

We never made it to the restaurant.   We only made it to the bar.  More champagne.  MUCH more.  We joined the table to our left and met some fantastic people.  It was one of the guys birthdays….MORE champagne!  followed by shots…..oh god, i want to die now…..   I’m having such fun though….. Whilst I am seated.   Standing is another matter completely……ooooh noooooo…..

Eventually we left the bar at 12.15 pm.  I am totally and absolutely skint….I have spent all of my cash on champagne!  Nightmare scenario now unfolding before me….

We walk to the underground station, only to find that they are closed!!  what’s happening…why are they closed!  So we hail a taxi….It was going to take me to St Pancras station, however, I have no cash…So, the taxi driver was going to turf me out!   Lesson no.1…don’t tell him when I get in!  I should have kept my mouth shut, but i’m too honest for my own good…..i thought i could give him my body or my debit card….he wouldn’t take either…. mind you…who would blame him!   with hindsight I could have got cash out at the station, but i was in no fit state to think, and well, he was a bloke….so i’ll excuse him (I apologise for my sterotyping to the nice genuine ones that read this….you know who you are 😉

So Dawn gets in and we take the cab to Waterloo, where I can then get a tube back to St Pancras (the same nightmare journey at the beginning :-).   I’m saying my goodbyes and Dawn spots a guy heading towards the Northern line….”excuse me…would you mind looking after my friend and making sure she gets to the Northern line please”  she asks.    Julian was his name.   A very nice young man….nice looking….safe.  I felt comfortable.  Well to be honest, I couldn’t have judged jack the rippers character at that point because i couldn’t actually see straight let alone walk straight.    My knees were agony.

AND THEN IT HAPPENED…………………………………..

in an effort to keep up with Julian, who seemed to be on a marathon run, I fell down the stairs.  Onto my bad knee.  cutting my hand and breaking my nails, my ankle buckled and falling flat onto my knee…..oh not good….really really not good.   I got up, dusted myself down and hobbled alone to the train.  Julian had disappeared.    Leaving me with a prophetic sentence ringing in my ears “remember to get off at Warren Street”  WHY??   I didn’t need to get off there?   

I sat on the tube wanting to cry, with a bleeding hand, but more mortified that I had broken my nails!  These are MY nails….not some stick on, fake, acrylic things….home grown with love and attention….and now i’d left half of them at Waterloo station.  I was gutted 😦     Very bizarrely, but when I’d left to go to London, I’d packed a couple of sticking plasters….never usually do…but I did today.  Thank God because I needed them for my hand 😦

I got off at Warren Street as i was told, and then it became clear….the wise words of Julian.   The Northern Line.  This is where you had to get on the Northern Line.  Only you didn’t at this time of night!  No trains…just buses…I had to go up, yet more bloody stairs to catch a bus.  Either the no.10 or 79.  Its now 12.39.  

I tried to call home but my phone has now completely died….I have no money.  If I miss the 1.06 train, I am stranded here till 7.00 pm….I’m really not liking whats unfolding before me!!!    I’m almost in tears.  There is a lovely guy that i’m having a conversation with who is also waiting for the same bus.  He’s going off to a club till 7.00 am…..so he says “oh never mind…if you miss your train, you can come to the club with me”  which although i don’t know him, i find quite comforting and very sweet in my hour of need……human kindness…… Aaahhh

The bus arrives….and i’m kind of concerned that i’m not going to recognise St Pancras, after all, i never usually enter in on a bus.   I never enter anywhere on a bus….but desperate needs etc etc…..

Surprisingly I did recognise the station…even in my drunken state……My knight in shining armour and I alight the bus together, I am stood there getting my bearings and then turn around to see his little legs running for dear life like a frightened rabbit darting from headlights as he legs it in the direction of Angel and ‘the club’……although the memory of his tight jean clad little bottom is firmly imprinted in my memory bank……run little rabbit…..run!

So much for human kindness eh!   I’m stranded again, but at least I’m at the station. 

It doesn’t look like the station that I normally come into but i’ve come into a different entrance obviously.  I am quickly heartned by the large board that announces in bright orange neon lights, that there is a train at 1.47….oh yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss   I am not stranded…..I could cry again.   Actually I feel like dancing now.   If I could have called someone to tell them the news I would have.

Walking to the train I passed a group of 5 or 6 young guys doing that thing little boys do at wedding receptions…..running along and then skidding to a halt by falling on their knees  They were having a lot of fun whilst waiting the 20 minutes for the train to depart.  There may only actually have been 2 of them…but there appeared to be 5 or 6!  They beckoned ME to join them!!!   AND do you know, that even after the fall I actually thought that I might have a go!!!  

I’m 46…in 4 weeks I’m due to have a knee replacement operation and I’ve just fallen down the stairs very badly on that knee…..and now i’m considering this boys game.   Champagne has a lot to answer for!!! 

I desperately wanted to sleep on the train but i wasn’t going to be allowed to.  We..the passengers…were treated to a full rendition of a full musical repertoire from the majority of the major London theatre musicals by a group of young adults.   It was very entertaining.  But I needed sleep.   I did surprise them though.  Someone shouted “who’s been smoking weed?”  I can smell it…..and I put my hand up!!!     They were all in hysterics…..I just don’t look the sort 😉    Actually it would have been the cheaper option me thinks….lol

Arrival at the station.   OMG.   No money….no phone…..no brain….

I forgot to say about the brain.  I think that nice bum guy stole that when he did a runner, because that was the last time i remember using it…..now it seems to have gone completely.   Instead of walking down the steps at the station, in my wisdom and fuelled by rocket fuel and numbness I took the only option available to me.   I walked the last 3 miles home.   I arrived home at 4.00 am.   

SUNDAY

I didn’t get out of bed all day…..I couldn’t move.  Can’t walk. 

 

SUNDAY a week later….NOW…….Still in agony with knee.  Should have had more champagne in the week to dull the sensation!