Home Sweet Home

I didn’t post anything yesterday.  This was partly because we were travelling back from Glasgow, but mostly as I woke up yesterday morning feeling as if I had drunk my body weight in cheap red wine, and spent the previous entire night dancing on tables and chain smoking cigars.  Obviously I didn’t which makes the whole experience doubly unfair, as I don’t even have the memories (or lack of them in patches) to decide if it was all worthwhile.  I can put the chain smoking cigars bit down to the fact that it seems that everybody in Glasgow smokes.  A quick Google search tells me that there are 24 branches of Wetherspoons in Glasgow.  We saw only a handful then during our trip but our evidence suggests they all have a hardcore following of heavy smokers outside at all times. The one nearest our hotel actually had that tiling that often decorates public lavatories plastered all over it, and was very proud of the fact it opened at 7am.  There was a specially constructed outdoor area overlooking the main road which appeared to be rammed at all times and it was like walking through a smoggy nicotine haze going past it, and a similar experience was available throughout most of the city centre.    As for the thumping headache, dehydration and piercing pain over my eyes, this is harder to explain.  Unless my three bottles of still mineral water were all spiked with an odourless, colourless and tasteless 100% alcohol based substance, then I can only assume hangovers are now contagious.  Mr Man had in fact drunk his body weight in alcohol (beer and mojitos to be precise) and although I am fairly certain he was not dancing on tables (not his style) his incoherent appearance back at the hotel room at about 4.30am would suggest he may have given the impression of waltzing his way back to the hotel from the party a few blocks away, as he certainly would not have been walking in a straight line.

Due to my current predicament, I had slipped away from the party at around 10.30pm so I could have a lie down in peace and avoid having to watch Mr Man and his friends get drunker and drunker, and listen to too much inane broker-banker chat.   Currency option trading stories are rarely funny the first time.  They do not improve on a second, third or even fourth telling, unfortunately, no matter how many mojitos and tequila shots have been added to the mix. You will never hear any of the acts at the Edinburgh festival receive a standing ovation at the end of a two hour set consisting largely of much pointing at any passing female and the cry “500 - yours”.

Anyway, we managed to make it to the airport and onto the plane back to London City despite our fragility, and somewhere over the Midlands I started to feel a bit better, although I am not sure the same could be said for Mr Man. We were home and reunited with Barney puppy who had spent the weekend with one of his other favourite humans by 5.30pm and all was well in the world again. So, from this experience I take the following positive and happy thought; whilst it is great to go away and explore new places, there are other times when there really is no place like home. And yesterday was one of them.