surplyz

I was having a very late, late lunch with IC on Friday afternoon when I discovered that the flat hadn’t completed. My solicitor called after we’d devoured a Cornish Cock Crab, Haddock Rarebit, Brown Shrimp and a bottle of Prosecco in J. Sheekey, a fine fish restaurant off St. Martins Lane. I took the news in a sedentary fashion, largely as I was informed that today, in about an hour, I’ll have my buyers deposit shoved into my account. It does mean that I have to sell the fucking flat again but as I’d already got used to this rather unpleasant fact, and the Prosecco and food were sitting happily in my stomach, plus the acquisition of cash-money for doing nothing save tearing out my hair for the past few months, I was quite relaxed about it.

IC and I had spent the earlier part of the afternoon being wowed by the Anish Kapoor exhibition in The Royal Academy of Art, which has been transformed into a sort of sculptural fun fair. It’s nice to go and see something that doesn’t demand faux intellectualism, its just joy from start to finish involving an almost childish sense of wonderment. In this respect one leaves feeling uplifted and re-charged, it’s fucking ace, go and see it, there’s even a bloody cannon in there firing big red wax lumps against a wall! And bendy mirrors and shit. Woot!

It was IC’s birthday on Thursday, following a grinding day in the office I rushed home via the garage to get some air for my tyres, though instead I ended up changing the rear wheel for a couple of clueless women, and arrived home to frantically set about preparing for the evening. Unknown to readers of this tripe, I’ve spent the past few weeks planning a surprise party for IC who on occasion reads this, hence your hearing about this for the first time. I shifted furniture and laid out all the bits and pieces I’d been discreetly collecting over the previous weeks and readied myself for the first of the guests to arrive.

Because IC lives over my flat I had to be very careful to make she didn’t spot her friends arriving, this meant I had to send out very specific instructions to the invited. I can’t be pissed to go into detail but they had to be in the flat by 7.50 or wait until later. By 7.50 there was about 10 people in my flat tucking into the booze, enough folk to make the whole thing work, so I went upstairs to get IC in the pretence of taking her out to dinner, now I was faced with the sticky matter of getting her downstairs.

I’d been preparing a lie about my fridge not working, so at exactly 7.55 a friend texted me for the purposes of making a text-beep. I then told IC that we had to go downstairs to move the fridge into the garden as the landlord ‘who’d just texted’ was passing by with a new fridge. As expected this didn’t go down tremendously well but she bought the fib and reluctantly agreed to help me. This was the most dangerous moment, walking out with IC and the chance of bumping into someone approaching my gaff, but my fears were in vain, I even managed to get her to walk in chez-Piqued first and the deal was done. Marvellous. In the course of the evening more friends arrived and by 9 there was almost 20 of us.

Can’t say I’ve hosted a party before, it’s quite hard work in many respects though fun in a transitory way. Seeing people getting on, everyone interacting with someone, it’s quite rewarding when all’s said and done and best of all is that IC was dead chuffed. I ordered a whole load of pizza which arrived at 10-ish only to disappeared faster than Valentino Rossi, I thought I’d over-ordered to be honest but when everyone left at around midnight there was 3 poultry slices left. One of IC’s friends had baked a cake, well a Bakewell Tart (like me IC isn’t a massive cake fan) so we ere even able to do the whole happy birthday/candles shit, throw a nice fat present into the mix and the evening was deemed an enormous success.

Following the delights of Friday IC and I returned home from town (in a very sobering rush-hour) and readied ourselves for the evening. Mary was DJ-ing in a club on the far side of Hackney, at 10 we took the brand new bus to the venue and the evening began in earnest. I have to say, I’m not really a clubbing sort, but the music was better than the dance stuff I loathe. By midnight the place was packed, I decided to remain on the side of the bar away from those throwing shapes though a spot of alcohol did see me attempting to get down on it. Fortunately for me there was a chap in a similarly less-than-smitten frame of mind so I was able to side-step the shame of having to boogie for the sake of it in lieu of conversation. IC took mercy on me at around 1am and we set off into the howling, pissing rain for home.

Remarkably I was alright on Saturday, I finished off cleaning the flat from Thursday and IC and I went out and had a bloody great fry-up in a café by Hackney Central. The weather was fucking awful but I didn’t really mind, I was eating bacon, sausage, eggs, black pudding and beans. And hash Browns. With a nice cuppa. Following a bit of shopping I spent Saturday afternoon taking it easy, pottering about the flat and what have you. In the evening we went to the local and met a bunch of friends who’d come for the second wave of IC’s birthday celebrations. Loads of people showed up and we took over half the pub, a happy few hours disappeared with pals and we left when the pub closed at midnight. IC and I went home and watched Easy Rider.

I slept until 1pm on Sunday, much needed rest following the hectic days before and we had a late breakfast of kippers before settling down to watch Spiderman 2 on the tellybox late in the afternoon. At 7.30 we set off for a favourite restaurant in Hackney, the final stage of the birthday celebrations and successfully fought off the horror of the looming Monday with wine and fine tucker.

I’m still waiting for this fucking money to reach my account. My solicitor called early this morning to assure me I’d have the money this morning… It’s no longer the morning. I’m wondering if there will ever be an end to all this shit. Still, it was a bloody good weekend, just be nice to pay myself back.

Oh, I’ve had no time to proof read this, if it reads more dreadfully than usual I accept no responsibility.

This is ace. Just pics, no vid.