Social Buterflies

Friday evening was fun. Very fun. Almost nobody last minute ditched. Almost everyone showed up on time. Other than the fact that they operate a no booking policy and despite getting our name on the list at 6.30 we didn’t get the table at Wahaca till 8.15, everything went smoothly. I don’t think anybody found a connection like I was hoping but most people mixed and mingled and made an effort. Of course some of this was my fault as I got Boston and Chicago mixed up in my head (I thought two people had lived in Boston at the same time but clearly my memory is lacking). But everybody made an effort and that, in my book, is what counts. You could see that some of them could be friends even without me having introduced them and I felt quite excited by my judgement of people. We ate as if at someone’s wedding, ordering plate after platter of what they loosely term ‘streetfood’ – tacos, quesadillas, tostadas, taquitos. The 3 people that once lived in the US called the food average in comparison to the Mexican available in the US but better than most by London standards. Of course the newbie/ trainee Londoners took some umbrage to this but only some. And none that got in the way of everyone stuffing their faces.

After Wahaca we hooked up with yet more friends at the NFT and sat there till they began dimming the lights urging us to leave. Was so high on all that laughter and the fact that when asked what my favourite flower was V answered tulip without any hesitation, that after I got home I watched Law and Order/ CSI till about 3am to unwind. Saturday and Sunday were whirlwind days. Saturday had, among other things, a long & speedy swim, a 30th birthday party to attend, a long and yet more stuffing dinner at Busaba with friends and some quiet time basking in the sun on long London bus journeys. Sunday was about waking up late, coffee and the papers in café Nero with V, finishing my book by the sunny windows inside the house and then dinner with a friend at Saravana Bhavan to cap it all off.

It was busy (but good busy) and I never once during the entire weekend felt drained of all my energy as shopping trips or social obligation meetings can often induce. In fact so buoyed was I with a feeling of goodness towards the world that I got conned into joining one of the social networking sites AGAIN. So now I not only have 5 email id’s, 1 blog, 3 instant messaging services, 2 home delivery grocers and about 5 internet shopping sites I frequent, I also have a page on a site which demands I play games, write notes on virtual walls, find friends from the back of my beyond, send and receive e-mail and generally be sociable. All these permutations combinations of user names and passwords are enough to make me one grumpy girl. Because really, I am not the social butterfly I seem. I am more caterpillar turning into chrysalis.

Wahaca: 66 Chandos Place, Covent Garden, London WC2N 4HG, T: +44 (0) 207 240 1883