Exhaustion, exuberance and expatriates

Apologies for the interruption in service. I’ve had a brutal couple of days. Yesterday I worked ten hours without a break – well, no, that’s not true; I stole fifteen minutes to drink a cup of soup. Today was marginally better, in that I got in at 8am and by a breezy 3.30pm I managed to get outside for a cup of tea. God I love the public service. In the private sector I’d have at least got to send out for a sandwich or something.

But that’s over now. I intend to resume my normal indolent work life forthwith.

Given that I left work so late yesterday, we decided to go out to dinner. And I have officially decided that going to dinner on a random weeknight is brilliant.

We went to one of the largest Chinese restaurants in Chinatown. It was only part-full, but we had the good fortune to be seated next to one of those big round banquet tables. All the guests arriving at that table were carrying boxes and backpacks. The first one opened his box and set out eight enormous wine glasses. You don’t tend to see that in a Chinese restaurant. The next one brought eight different glasses. The next handed around printed programs. The others brought bottles of wine.

“They’re plotting to overthrow the government, right?”
“Definitely. Pass the rice”

And I’m going out again tonight, despite exhaustion, because that’s just the sort of jet-setting lifestyle I lead. And because it's the leaving party of one of my dearest friends in the world. It's at a place which, I am told, is the place to be these days. I’m not sure if that sentence usually ends with “…on a Wednesday” but we shall see.

I intend to bolster my emerging reputation as a bright young thing in constant demand (shut up) by drinking two glasses of wine, slurring something embarrassingly sincere about eternal friendship and then falling asleep in the corner.

I’ll keep you posted.