Better than Expected?

Last night I went to a Christmas Do I wasn’t really looking forward to. I had tried to come up with reasons why I shouldn’t go, and even hatched several fiendish plans to prevent me from attending but none of them worked (including trying to get someone to break my leg). I got home from work, did the ‘Nothing to Wear’ dance and then went ending up wearing, what I realised later, the same skirt I wore last year and a v neck top… with a hole in it. Genius. Yes, I wore heels which were deeply uncomfortable for the first half of the night, then came the dancing and they were okay again. Uncomfortable sitting down, fine standing up - magic shoes!

Dad has pathological fear of being late so, as usual, we were the first ones to arrive at Bistro French - the front door wasn’t open and there was no one around. This led to a really awkward ‘Are we sure it’s this place, this time, this day?’ conversation and then the door opened. The staff were still setting up. So we did the only thing that you can do in a situation like that - ordered a round of drinks (which were very reasonably priced) and kept them coming. It was another 15minutes before anyone else from our party arrived.

The time we were supposed to be sitting down for dinner was 7.30… the time the ‘not terrible, but not great - y’know fairly standard food’ arrived was closer to 9pm. By that time I was hungry enough to eat the table leg and so pretty much ate whatever was in front of me. I think that’s how they get away with such a standard menu.

The background music for the first two thirds of the night was what I can only assume was a fairly average CD on repeat… with no Christmas tunes. But you could barely hear it anyway as the place was almost full.

And then the lights dimmed and the DJ put the usual affair on, with Christmas tunes and the dancing on the tables started. This is what the Bistro is known for and their tables are reinforced purely for this. I kept my feet on the ground, to ‘keep Mum company’ but mostly because I am terrified of heights. Yes, even when it’s only 3 foot off the ground…

Anyway, watching the ‘cool’ and ‘trendy’ sing along to ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ while sidestepping was pretty funny.

But then, the live band came on and everything improved. Dramatically. The Deadbeats (who are anything but) are a cover band who did everything from Tiffany’s I Think We’re Alone Now to Wild Cherry’s Play That Funky Music to The Fratelli’s Chelsea Dagger to Guns ‘n’ Roses Sweet Child of Mine. And did them well. No, not well… they were bleedin’ fantastic.

I turned into a teeny bopping groupie type - singing and dancing like mad and screaming, cheering, clapping. There was a small voice in the back of my head reminding me that I had work in the morning where I have to speak and I would regret all these vocal extremes but, pah, I was having a gooooooood time. The whole evening would have been brilliant if they had come on earlier but had the DJ been on after them he would have had to step his game up massively to not bring the mood crashing down.

Today, though, all day, my knees have been killing me. That can be explained easily - heels and dancing like a crazy person. But why, oh why, do my thumbs hurt?