Season Of The Witch: December 2012

Its pretty staggering to think how different my life was this time last year.

Christmas is now done and gone - a wonderfully relaxed and peaceful week - so much so it was a tremendous effort to make myself come back to London. Every day I would procrastinate ' just one more day, just one more day' safely cocooned in quiet suburbia, eating and drinking like a queen, cuddling the beautiful dog and hanging out with my siblings watching endless films. Yesterday saw the first sunshine in well over a week which was enough incentive to put on a bra and come back to the city. I dumped my shit and made my way to catford for a freaking delicious roast dinner with liz, nic, erica and dean. Of course I did get caught by a train station attendant furiously yanbking up my new tights which had made their way south. I also fell up Liz's stairwell, smashing a bottle of wine and soaking the carpet. And as a technical fifth wheel to two couples, as i sat shoving giant pieces of toblerone in my mouth, I did start to look back at my year, and wonder if next year, would I still be single? God Bridget.

My year started off great. A party at my favourite local pub, and then in mid january , a delicious long holiday in our own castle in scotland with my parents and boyfriend. Of course, the joy was short lived and back in reality with empty bank accounts and that horrible january grey depression, my 3 and a half year relationship went kaput. It was a tough time and at first, I was pretty lost. I dont want to say I lost my identity in the relationship because that would be very unfair, however I was left wildly thrashing about in my head of what the fuck I would do next.

My aunt and uncle let me move in with them - a bloody godsend - and i put myself back together. I realised this was my last full year in my 20s, and i wasnt going to spend it crying under a duvet and watching steel magnolias. So I started making myself go out more.

And with that, I then made some fucking amazing new friends. It wasnt that i disliked my job before, but i never really bothered with that many people. Well, more fool me, for i wasted an entire year. I am really really grateful for the awesome people i now get to hang out with, not only at work, not only after work, but in my own time as well. When I looked at my facebook review of the year, i was shocked to see I had 63 new friends this year. And thats when i realised how many new people are in my life that were not in 2011. Special obvious shout outs to erica, dean, mountain, martin, tina, rou, matty and mark, among many others.

I also made the move back into London. Talk about knocking ten years off my life. No longer shackled to the curse of leaving the party to run for the last train back to essex, i moved to bethnal/stepney green with felicity and lois. The entire flat looks like a vintage explosion and I love it. This has also pushed me into going out more - markets, musuems, galleries, bars.

When I look back, i cant believe how fast this year has flown. a photo update is needed i think.

So ims itting here, in my room in london, getting ready to go out, and wondering just how different i am from last year.

Theres a great philosophical thinker: if you have a boat, and you replace a bit of the boat with something new, its still the same boat. but if you took the whole boat down and rebuilt it with new pieces in one go - then its a new boat. But what happens when you piece by piece, add something new? When does that boat become something different?

It seems like summer was only yesterday, when I was hanging out in golden square park on my lunch break, sitting by the open windows of a bar supping a strawberry cider or hanging out at midnight with Irish at spoons with no jacket. I dont remember what its like to see alot of people in daylight. So, heres hoping that the miserable three months that kick off 2013 fly by so we can hit spring running. Ive been looking back alot over 2012 and despite a pretty spectacular fail of a February, the rest has been, dare i say it, one of the best yet? We will hold that thought for next week.

So whats been going on? ALOT. December has been darn tootin busy with social activities! Here are some highlights.

Most of the usual crowd and I headed off to some pub north for oxford street for a pub quiz where I assured myself that consolation of realising im actually pretty thick would come in the form of free chips and wine.

Of course we all soon turned on each other furiously arguing about the answers. But mainly it was these two!

My team at work were then invited to a one of our firm of Solicitors parties. I was really excited, mostly because I knew it would be swanky AND an open bar.

We rolled up in our finest and started knocking back the champagne whilst I tried to avoid any kind of social interaction with men in suits and stared at the beautiful view of London from the 28th floor of the Millbank Tower,

Things soon turned pretty ugly and before long the room had emptied out and we were still sat drinking. Time to leave! Dean and I staggered down to Embankment and I made it home and a not unreasonable 11.30pm

Somehow then also ended up out on the friday but it was with three of my favourite Londoners so who was I to complain?

More free drinks - sucking on the teat of our solicitors expense account. This was less refined than the other work drinks. Knocked back wine, jack daniels, jager, and other strange and wonderful concoctions There was inappropriate touching, fighting, vomiting, and then the realisation it was 1am and i needed to leave. now. The walk from picadilly to oxford circus took forever and i stopped midway to have a not inconspicuous pee on carnaby street. Nightbus, home, weird man in my kitchen. remove key from bedroom door.

I woke up saturday, chucked up, ordered alot of pizza and decided i needed to be where there was central heating so i chucked some stuff in my bag and headed back to essex to lay on my mums sofa watching shit tv with the dog.

A few weeks ago we booked a voucher on dealcloud for two burgers two chips two drinks for a fiver. BARGZ! its usually pretty difficult to get folk out mid month let alone mid month december, however a group of ten of us all caught a bus to Angel where we walked the back streets, inhaling the freezing winter air that smelt like fireplaces and singing songs from Oliver!, However, on arrival to our destination, smiles soon faded as we rocked up in what resembled an empty working mans club in Sheffield in the 80s. There wasnt even ten chairs and it smelt alot like chip pans. The bemused looking man behind the bar told us, after seeing our vouchers, that they only offered that deal on mondays wednesdays thursdays fridays saturdays and sundays,. But not, erm, today. We agged about with him, pissed off until he relented and said he could probably knock us some food together. No thanks. We all left pretty sharpish to a beautiful pub ( arent they all in Angel?) and then a couple of us went for some delicious mexican food.

I caught the bus home, having one of those ' I love London' moments, noting how in the thick fog it felt not unlike a Dickens book, taking my time walking down the back streets of east london til i saw a tramp getting a blow job from a hooker who gagged and vomited and he ejaculated in her hair. Dark.

Last year I didnt really enjoy the work christmas party. For a start, I was friends with say oh...two people. And one of them was my sisters boyfriend. Secondly I turned up late as my morning appointment ran late. I looked like shit, I drank a bunch of wine and went home at five.
This year would be different. I would wear a proper dress, and LARK! I am friends with actual real people at work. I came in my hair in rollers covered from the elements in a silk scarf. Yes, I may have been mocked, but there was a girl in the office wearing giant pink rollers lik a footballers wife and when she took hers out, all her curls flopped. I WIN.
We went to cafe de paris, ate alot of teeny tiny food, drank some not so teeny glasses of wine, and somehow me and bruce ended up dancing on stage . Shameful. I dont overly remember getting to the after party but I do know that for once, I was not the most badly behaved. Yes, there may have been several embarassing dance moves/ conversations and yes, I may have got to embankment and laid on the floor to have a think about where i could have put my oyster card but considering some of the things ive said and done before on work outings, I consider this a rather refined success.