One Night, Pre-Bangkok

So, a couple of weeks back, my best friend Margaret invited me round for a quiet Friday dinner with her and her husband Malcolm.  I’d had a tough week at work, getting ready to hand over to my successor, and they’d both, for a host of reasons, had BRUTAL weeks, so I made sure to finish up at work early (read:  only an hour after closing time, Jesus) and sloped off to M&M’s for a night of boardgames and, hopefully, drinking.

My first clue that something was up was when Margaret opened the door just a crack and peered out at me suspiciously.

“Um… hi?”

“It’s Catherine!” she announced, flinging the door open.

It’s a sign of how gruelling my week had been that the thoughts that went through my head, in order, were:

Oh, hey, Liz is here, too!  I was hoping that she’d be able to join us for dinner tonight, but Margaret said she couldn’t make it…

… Margaret’s wearing an awfully pretty dress for boardgame night…

… why are there balloons?...

To my credit, those thoughts all went through my head pretty quickly, in the moment it took a roomful of people to shout, “Surprise!”

BEST.  LEAVING.  PARTY.  EVER.

As I mentioned, my friend Liz trekked in from Milton Keynes to join us, and the last member of our Five Man Band, Moray, showed up about five minutes after I did.  (And came very close to ordering me to leave and come in again, so that he could have the fun of shouting, “Surprise!” like everyone else. :))  Two of my closest friends from the Hampstead Players theatre group came along, as well, as did Malcolm’s ridiculously cool brother and sister-in-law.  It was an absolutely brilliant gang, and I was so glad to get the chance to see them all before I left!

The party itself was pretty spectacular, as well.  There were mountains of Thai food, because I’m going to Thailand, and a truly insane amount of chocolate, because, well, Margaret Party. :)  There were champagne-bottle-shaped party poppers that spewed out streamers, because my friends know me all too well, and they understand that the most appropriate way to honour me is with things that explode.  (Also chocolate.)  And there was booze.  LOTS of booze.  I blame that for the fact that everyone was getting a little teary by the end of the evening, and by “everyone” I mean me.

There were also party games.  There was Pin the Gnome on Catherine (long story, but Christ on a pogo stick, those things are terrifying), and Pin Catherine on Thailand (played with a map of Thailand and a little avatar of me – a woman with wild hair, a crazed expression, and a motorcycle, so pretty lifelike, then :)).  Apparently, being pinned anywhere other than Thailand would have obliged me to go there in real life, so I’m pretty luck that I managed to hit the right country on my first try.  I don’t think that, say, the Cambodian authorities accept a printed-out map studded with tiny motorcycle-people in lieu of a visa.  And later, there were discussions of ancient Roman werewolves and disturbing onomatopoeia, and before the night was over, one of our number confessed to a romantic obsession with Lois from Family Guy.  It would be beneath me to hint at the identity of the man so tormented by this forbidden passion, so I’ll just come right out and say that it was Moray. :)

I woke up on a futon upstairs, to a supremely indifferent cat crawling disdainfully all over me and to the sounds of Margaret and Liz making waffles.  My first thought on waking up, I have to say, was, “Am I crazy?  What was I doing, signing up to leave these people for two years?”

I know that I want this.  It’s just that, after six years, I really feel like I have a home here.  I’m living in London, I have a job in my field (or had), and I have friends like these.  Those are the things I used to dream about when I was an undergraduate.  And leaving them is tough – tougher that I realised.

I suppose that’s the real sign of a great leaving party:  it makes you kick yourself for leaving.

Although the mix of chocolate and confetti smeared on the cats was a pretty good sign, too.