davywavy | Well, interesting anyway.

Saturday dawned bright & early and ai rose from my pit like a Chinese Vampire from the tomb before keeping up the chinese theme by hopping off down to Shanghai Tang where I was intending to buy some shirts. Sadly the only stuff they had in stock was either a) Far,far, far too expensive, or b) made me look like a waiter in a cheap Chinese restaurant. I don't know about you, but I don't consider punting out £500 for a silk jacket I'll only wear twice, no matter how cool it is, a good investment.
So I went to Camden and got in touch with my inner goth by buying some stuff there instead. It'll be eyeliner next, and then where will I be?
Then off to lunch at an expensive Chinese restaurant with

ukmonty and half of

jessandcraig; Monty was fashionably late so Jess & I ordered food without him and ate so much that the button flew off my trousers with such force that it stunned an old lady at the next table. Then Monty & someone else showed up and we ate yet more. Then I had considerable standing & walking. Burp.

Then off to Cambridge and the Graduate public house, where I spent most of the evening catching up and chatting and ogling Jenni May, who was wearing nothing but her undies for reasons that I don't know but didn't object to as it was the best thing that had happened to me all day.
What with chatting to

skinny_cartman,

robinbloke annd others i ended up having to catch the lae train home, whihc stops everywhere and is always full of druken morons all called Wayne, Sharon, Darren or Tracey (irrespective of gender). I did have a long chat about alternative history with an amiable Rasta called Ben so it wasn't all bad, but for the most part raucous laughter of the "Nah-ah-ah-ah-ah stobbit I'll wet mesen'" sort all the way home left me in a pretty poor temper.
At King Cross I hpped in a cab and finally arrived on my front door at about 1:30am where I put my hand in my pocket and went:

Oh.

I don't have my keys.

A flurried search of my bag & pockets confirmed the truth: my keys were somewhere between London and Cambridge, and I was locked out of my home. On the streets. In the cold, and the dark. There was nobody in the house, as a string of panicky phone calls to the answerphone and leaning on the doorbell proved. I was, it seemed, well and truly screwed.
I quickly ran through a string of options along the lines of crashing under a bridge, or sitting under a lamp-post reading until dawn, or even sleeping in the park with just my bag as pillow. It is a warm night, I thought, I can survive sleeping rough once in my life. After all, some people aren't lucky like me. They don't have beds or houses to go back to; they think themselves lucky to have water and life. If they can do it, I thought, then so can I. I can survive a night under the stars until someone gets back tomorrow to let me in. If anything, it would do me good. Toughen me up. Make a man of me.
Then I came to my senses and got a cab to Vixtoria where I checked into a hotel.
(In case you're wondering, it was the 'Quali Hotel', so called because the 'ty' on the end of 'Quality' were broken. I should have known what to expect from that alone.
A word of warning though; hotels where advertised room rates are both daily and hourly aren't going to be the Ritz, but at 2am you can't afford to be picky. If you don't want to stay in hotels which look like the previous occupant over your room has spilled tea (or at least you hope it's tea) over the walls and ceiling, don't lose your keys in the early hours.)

With the benefit of four hours sleep, on Sunday I was expected in Oxfordshire for my sister's post-wedding bash (she was married last week but I didn't post about that as I knew my family, having discovered my LJ, would be circling like vultures to see what I'd written and I decided not to give 'em the satisfaction). There was still no reply from home so I had no chance of getting to change my undies or to change from my usually scummy attire.

At this point, let me digress. Two of my least favourite words in the entire world are 'Smart Casual'. I mean, just what does 'Smart Casual' mean?
I'll tell you what it means to me: "David, as you look on chinos, slacks and polo shirts as the very dresscode of Baelzebub himself, we're going to make it as difficult as possible for you to come along to our party. You see, nothing you wear when you're not in work will match this frankly absurd dress code (which is as much of a uniform as a suit itself). The only people who know what 'smart casual' means are people to whom house prices, Beaujolais nouveax, and curtains remain interesting topics of conversation. As such, David, you're going to have to dress like you're going to work^* in order to come and socialise with us. Ha ha ha."
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what 'Smart Casual" means to me. Fortunately, as I couldn't get home, I had a good excuse for not dressing up. So I didn't.

So it was that tried, irritable, and wearing yesterdays underpants, I dragged myself to Oxfordshire and this place, which, I have to admit, brightened my mood considerably. A rather spiffy Elizabethan country house complete with gardens, follies, and a ha-ha, it struck me that we could bump off Lord Rousham, the current owner, and take up residence. After all, I own a monocle and so can easily pass as a member of the upper classes.
The afternoon was pleasant; I've decided to cut down on my booze intake again as a part of my ongoing lard-reduction exercise, and so I didn't get too squiffy, but the food was nice (although there was nothing like enough Pavlova - only enough for one serving each!) and company was acceptably, even if for no reason I could understand sister number 2 has arranged the tables so sister number 1 was on the other side of the marquee from the rest of her family.
By this stage i was really too hpot and tried to make an interesting contribution to the afternoon's procedings and so eventually i got a spare set of keys and drifted off homewards, to bed and an early night.

anf that was the weekend, that was.

^* Note: I tend to be of the opinion that when I dress up, I like to dress properly. That's why I have all the Kenzo suits, and why I shop at places like Shanghai Tang. If I'm not dressing up, then I'm not bothered. This has caused friction between the wench & I in the past.