TOTALLY CREAM CRACKERED

The last few weeks have been pretty huge. I started a new job at the beginning of March - it's for the same company I temped with for a few months last year so it's been really good coming back into a familiar environment. The people there are great, many of them completely bonkers, so I fit in quite well. The company is an employers' association and I'm back with the Business Development team as a project manager. Last year I was on the sponsorship side of things, which I didn't enjoy much at all, but now I'm involved with longer-term strategic alliances. So for example I'm project-managing a £25,000 feasibility study on whether we should start up our own insurance company to cover Employment Tribunal prosecutions of our members. Insurance is quite boring, but this project is exciting. Really, I'm not just telling myself that!

And because I live in London and I'm me, I've also been partying. A lot. Given that it's 10pm on a Sunday and I'm still feeling queasy from last night's adventures (which didn't end until 5.30 this morning), I would suggest that I may have been partying a little too much. One of the best parties I've been to for a long long time was my friend's 30th birthday costume party. The theme was Punks and Pirates, but another mate desperately wanted to dress up as a Stormtrooper so it became Punks and Pirates and Steve the Stormtrooper. Steve's costume was awesome. The mask was bought from a costume shop but the entire rest of his outfit was made from polystyrene and that plastic packing material that Ikea furniture comes wrapped in (in the photo it's the stuff covering his head and neck). He made it all himself and looked amazing.

The next week was the highly-anticipated (by me at least) Jonathan Coulton concert which was just as good as I had hoped. Except that he didn't play Mr Fancy-Pants. I had way too much horrible pink wine and got so toasted that I went up to him afterwards and berated him for not playing the song. I also remember telling him that "a dingo ate my baby". That wine was evil. I felt very, very ill the next day but still managed to catch a bus down to Bournemouth to visit a friend for the Easter long weekend.

The photo disguises the fact that we were exposed to bone-chilling temperatures, arctic winds, hail and sleet. Seriously. It's the first time I've been hailed on while walking along the beach. It was a fantastic weekend though. Most of the time was spent indoors eating, drinking and being merry. Very merry. I don't want my blog to give the impression that I drink all the time, but the fact is I do drink all the time. Not in an alcoholic kind of a way, more like in a "that's just what you do here" kind of way. I'm thinking of having a detox month in May, just to let my liver know I care.

So that was last weekend, my adventures last night centred around the disco party boat I mentioned in my post on 1st of April last year. Last year I crashed this girl's birthday party (she was the wife of a friend of a friend who I had never met), but in the intervening 12 months I've not only become friends with her myself, but also temped at her company and therefore met a lot of the hunky Polish blokes that she employs. So last year's boat full of muscly strangers became this year's boat full of muscly acquaintances. It was a good night. Despite managing to avoid every one of the tequila shots being passed around all evening, I still woke up this morning a bit worse for wear.

So no wonder I'm feeling knackered (or "cream crackered" as they say here). My vow is to be a little more civilised this coming weekend, and to actually post a blog that doesn't involve me complaining about a hangover. I just don't think a post about the joys of finding a pair of shoes I don't hate or the annoyance provoked by an unclean microwave would make for interesting reading. Maybe I should let you be the judge.