Last weekend a couple of friends, Ben and Emma, had their house warming party.  They’ve been living together for a couple of months now, but hadn’t had chance to get around to having a party until now.  When I first found out about them moving in I asked when the party was going to be.  I was told they weren’t having one.  Of course that meant that when I received the invitation I couldn’t exactly say no.

So off I went back up to Halifax for the weekend.  The party was Saturday night and I travelled up on Saturday afternoon.  The plan was to go up on the train to Halifax, walk to their house, stay there the night, and come home on the train next day.  I deviated from the plan sightly to visit my parents on the Sunday (and then get the train from Brighouse), but other than that it all worked out.

The theme for the party was Vikings and Princesses.  Naturally I chose to be a princess.  My costume wasn’t very ambitious: it consisted of a pink shirt and a tiara I sent Miss D out to buy from Claire’s Accessories earlier in the week.  I did try to accessorise through my presents, although wasn’t very successful.  On the journey up there I’d come up with the idea of taking pink champagne with me — after all, what else would a princess drink? — the plan was to buy it once I got there as I knew I’d arrive a bit early. (Here’s a tangent: I caught a great new service provided by the open access operator Grand Central Railway directly from London Kings Cross to Halifax.  It was very interesting.  The train runs fast to Doncaster on the East Coast Mainline before taking a slightly unusual route via Potefract, Wakefield, Brighouse and Halfax to Bradford.  Both legs of the journey were remarkably pleasant (I say this as a regular long-distance rail traveller).  The train had plenty of legroom (if I’m going to be picky, possibly slightly too much — being 6’3″ I’m used to curling my legs up, slumping down in my chair and wedging my knees against the seat in front, however this wasn’t possible because it was just too far away, while there wasn’t quite enough space to stretch them out fully forwards without banging my shins on the seat in front) and comfortable seats.  The conductor was very friendly: I had the same one both ways and he was kind enough to bring me a timetable on the way out, and remembered me on the way back (actually that was kind of embarrassing — it was the next day and I was clearly wearing the same clothes, thus advertising I was a dirty stopout).  Anyway, their service comes strongly recommended by me.)  Unfortunately it seems expecting Sainsbury’s in Halfax to have pink champagne is a little too much to ask, so I had to resort to normal champagne and pink straws.  This wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t decided against going to M&S for the champagne, who would have had it, on the way past.  I consoled myself in the thought that I also wanted to by Southern Comfort and lemonade for me.

The party was pretty standard.  Some people I knew, some I didn’t.  I spent the evening with my camera, and didn’t drink (see, could have saved on the Southern Comfort as well).  As the evening wore on I began to get more tired, and with that more fed up.  If you follow my Twitter feed you’ll know I’m getting too old to stay out all night.  By the early hours of the morning I just wanted to go to bed.  A proper bed.  Next morning I was up before everyone else (this is usual when I stay over night at someone’s house) and did some tidying (this is, historically, also pretty usual and means you usually get invited back).  I got a lift into Halifax with Becca and met my mum at the Minster.

I only spent a couple of hours with my parents, but it was very pleasant.  I got to see their new solar panels, and let my dad know how I was getting on with some work I’ve been doing for him.  I also showed them some photos I’d seen on Facebook taken at my cousin’s wedding which they’d attended the weekend before.  My dad then gave me a lift to Brighouse to catch the train back to London.  I arrived home about half six and, after letting my parents know I’d got back and having something to eat, fell asleep almost straight away.

It was a tiring weekend, and to tell the truth I’ll be glad when this week’s over so I can spend the weekend in bed, but I think it was probably worth it.  It might even end up paying itself off late next year — a couple of my friends asked if I’d shoot their wedding for them.  More on that later.

We were told about it quite a long time ago, and Miss D had spoken to Mr T about him going.  He’d not been very keen on the idea and had initially tried to convince Miss D that she shouldn’t go, simply because he didn’t want to.  Thankfully she stood her ground and said she was going, and that it was up to him if he wanted to.  He agreed to come along after he’d finished work and made his way back from Birmingham.  She offered for him to give both me and Mr P a lift back after the reception.

The evening came around and we went to the reception.  I wasn’t much looking forward to it and had managed to get myself into a bit of a bad mood before the evening got started.  Miss D and I hung around together not doing much until Mr P arrived.  Once he was there things picked up a bit, we sat around and talked as a group.  Miss D and I were getting on very well, at one stage she even leaned on my knee while talking to Mr P (this is unusual — she’s normally very physically disconnected, the few times I’ve tried making friendly contact with her, the way I happily do with my other girly friends, she’s moved away).  About 9.45 Mr T rang Miss D saying he was on his way, he just needed to get changed and set off from his parent’s house about 10 minutes drive away.  An hour later he rang again asking where the hotel was.  There was some confusion while Miss D tried to explain to him how to find the place, but in the end he turned up.  This was about 11.

Mr T got himself a drink, Miss D attached herself to him, and he and Mr P started chatting, and I felt left out.  So I went to talk to other people.  The talking to other people went on a while, but I was starting to get restless.  I’d been working all day and was tired and getting grumpier.  I just wanted to go home.  After a few attempts at trying to speed up the leaving process I stomped off into the garden and sat in the dark on some steps somewhere for a few minutes.  Once I’d wallowed in my own misery for long enough I turned around and headed back.  On the way back in I bumped into Miss D, Mr P and Mr T heading out looking for me.  They’d finished, presumably noticed I was missing, and come to look for me.

So we all crammed into Mr T’s little car and headed off back to the flat.  It was too late for Mr P to get the train back home so he stayed on our floor.  On the way back the conversation turned to politics.  Mr T has some very right wing and often poorly informed views which can at time really get on my nerves.  I decided that, because I wasn’t in the best mood, I’d keep quiet, so I sat in the back of the car biting my lip.  Throughout the journey I was aware that Mr T was occasionally looking at me in the rear-view mirror.  I wasn’t sure if he was trying to get a response out of me with what he was saying, or if he just expected me to say something, but I wasn’t the only one to notice his looks — when I spoke to Mr P about it a little later he said he’d noticed too.

Once we got back to the flat Miss D started fussing about, offering Mr P toast and various other things.  I tried my best to politely get rid of both her and Mr T: “It’s ok, I’m sure we can use the toaster”, “we’re both grown ups, I think we’ll be ok”; but it didn’t work.  They stood there and Mr T started talking again.  He talked for about another half hour while I stood there keeping quiet.  After a while Miss D started saying things like “I think we should leave before Carreg falls asleep”, and everything looked reasonably promising.  Just as they were about to go someone said something unwise about the Ireland and the Euro.  Mr T turned back and started talking again.

I’d had enough.  “Can we talk about this some other time, there’s another 2 hours work of conversation here.”  I can’t remember who said what next, but it was my response that was the problem. “Are you going to stay all night?” “I can if I want.” “Yes, but are you?” Miss D didn’t like that much.  I’m not sure too much thought went into it prior to saying it, but I think perhaps the next move was going to be something like “if you are then I’ll give up pretending to be polite and go to bed”.  They left pretty quickly. It just reached a point I couldn’t hold it in any more.  Mr T annoys me anyway, and the whole evening put together was just too much.  I would have been fine, with a little bitching at Mr P later on, had they gone then, but I just reached the point it was too much.

I know I shouldn’t have done it. I felt bad as soon as they’d gone and I sent Miss D a text saying sorry. I bought her flowers to try to make up for it; we’d been talking earlier in the week and she’d said it would be nice to have flowers around the house more often.  I made sure I wasn’t in when she got back on Sunday, I thought it would be best to leave a little note with the flowers and get back after she did, I thought it would be easiest.  Sunday night was still a bit quiet and awkward.  The same of Monday night.  I tried to talk about just other things, but it didn’t seem to work very well. On Tuesday we talked to each other on Windows Live Messenger and we cleared the air a little (we weren’t in the same room at the time whilst talking on MSN, I’d like to point out!).

One thing which was good to clear up was for me to know that she knows I don’t much like Mr T.  Before that I’d never really been sure if she really knew what I thought.  While she might not really appreciate exactly what I think (although I think she probably does subconsciously, just doesn’t want to really admit it — I’m still holding on to the thought that once her and Mr T are no longer an item she’ll come back and say I was right all along…), it’s kind of good to know she sees the friction between the two of us but can cope with that. As I’ve said before, I’d never win if it came to a choice between me and him.  Rightly or wrongly, that’s just the way it goes.

Vick’s birthday was a few days ago and she had her party this weekend.  I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go — it’s a long way and I wasn’t sure how many people would be there that I would know, but I decided that if Miss T would go then I would too.  So on Wednesday I rang her.  She didn’t answer (this isn’t unusual), so I left a message on her answerphone.  Thursday night Vick rang asking if I was going.  I said I wasn’t sure and sounded a bit unkeen.  This didn’t last long, she soon told me that I had no excuse and was going.  That night I had a chat with Sarah to find out if she and Andy were going, she said they were for a bit, so I felt a bit better about it.  I tried to ring Miss T again on Friday night and but she didn’t answer again so I left it there — if she did want to go then I could accomodate that up to about 12 on Saturday, and I was sure she’d know that.

I set off around 2pm on Saturday and made my way up the country on various trains.  The trip was very straight-forward — the Virgin Train from Euston to Manchester on the way there was delayed by a few minutes, but that didn’t bother me.  I got to Manchester just about 25 to 7 and met Vick at the pickup point.  After meeting with Hannah, a friend of Vick’s from school, we went back to the flat.  Waiting there was another of Vick’s school friends (I honestly can’t remeber her name, she has very ginger hair…) and Matt from University.  So we all chatted and got to know each other a bit.  Soon Vick’s work mates began to arrive.  I’d been a bit sceptical about meeting them to be quite honest.  Vick’s a journalist for Century Radio and having seen a few things on Facebook and met a few broadcast media types of my age, I was bracing myself for them to be a little self-obsessed and generally irritating.  It seems I was wrong — although I didn’t talk to them very much, the few I did talk to were really nice.

We had some food at Vick’s flat (I say ‘we’ in the widest sense given it doesn’t include me) before heading in to the city to Apotheca, a cocktail bar in the Northern Quarter.  It’s quite a nice little place, but was very busy.  I stood for most of the time we spent there and chatted to Matt and Aaron.  I also spoke a little bit to another person who had lived with Vick while at University but who we had never met.  We were also joined by Vick’s current house mate, her boyfriend (for a little bit, although he headed off quite quickly), and Rachel who is currently studying for a masters in Lancaster and who I also knew from the radio station.  We stayed in this bar until about midnight (or possibly slightly earlier, I’m not exactly sure) and then headed out to find the Press Club…

At this point I should mention the first of the two people I brought up in my opening paragraph (although I’m not sure if I should make it three — while I didn’t talk to her much, I realised a few times that Hannah had tuned out of what was going on around her and was looking at me.  I kind of got the impression that she might have fancied me a bit (this isn’t a bad thing, she is a nice girl), but didn’t say anything.  I think we’re both quite shy when it comes to that kind of thing, so didn’t really talk to each other.  This suspicion was backed up (perhaps) when we were in the Press Club and her friend (the ginger one whos name I feel bad for not remebering) asked me if I would go and dance with Hannah: “will you do me a favour?  Will you go and dance with Hannah — she wants to dance but I’m not going up there.”  I wasn’t the person right next to her and she had to make a point of asking me rather than someone, anyone, else at the table.  It did cross my mind that maybe maybe she was trying to get us to interact for some reason).  The first of which was a very brief encounter as we were going in to the bar.  I was walking down the pavement and there was a girl coming the other way.  I didn’t really notice her until I realised she was looking at me.  We made the most fleeting eye contact.  She had very light blue eyes, quite nice really, but over all I got the impression she wasn’t quite the kind of person I was looking for.  I broke the eye contact and we passed each other.  Dispite this being possibly one of the shortest bits of contact possible, it was suprisingly nice to have that kind of attention paid to me — it feels like it’s been a long time since that kind of thing last happened, and it (along with the other person I’ll talk about a little later on) made me feel good about going out there and enjoying the thrill of  that kind of interaction.  My previous relationships have been with people I’ve known for a long time — who I’ve kind of grown into relationships with — and this is a bit different.  It’s really rather exciting.

So we got to the Press Club at about half 12.  The entrance is a small gray door hidden away down the side of an insignifican building with a couple of, as Vick described them, ‘pretty bouncerish bouncers’.  They stopped the group and the door and wanted ID.  This wasn’t normal ID — they wanted press cards.  Vick had hers and was trying to get the other members of the group to get theirs out (which was slightly harder than it sounds given people had been drinking by this time for a while already).  In the end we managed to muster a set of ITV issued cards and a BBC ID which got us all in.  Once through the door there was a table with a woman behind it.  To this woman we paid £5 and in return got a stamp on the back of our right wrists, presumably to allow us back in if we went out to smoke.  From there we went downstairs.  At the bottom of the stairs was a little hatch through to the cloak room and a bouncer telling us not to forget there was a coat policy… we had to use the cloak room, so I took things out of my coat pockets, handed in my coat and scarf, and headed into the main room.  So far the place hadn’t been very impressive, the entrance hall bare and the cloak room more like a store room (although to be fair to them, it did all it needed to do as a cloak room!), but it was still a little bit of a suprise when we went through into the main room.

Vick had so far told us that it was “so bad it’s good”, but that’s about all those of us who had not been before knew.  Matt’s first comments sum it up well: “you could easily think you were in a social club in a small Yorkshire town like Keighley”.  A small ‘dance floor’ in the centre with a disco ball in the centre, around that sets of tables with padded but not very comfortable chairs, a DJ/MC at one end with speakers and lights which look like they have come from a 90s school disco, a bar along one wall, and a few red simulation leather sofas around the edge.  A couple of the tables were taken up by groups of 4 or 5 middle age people, and there was a middle-aged (although not unattractive) lady dancing drunkenly by herself in the middle.  We got drinks, pulled three tables together, and sat down.  After a while the MC called someone up from the room — it turned out there was a bit of karaoke going on — he wasn’t great, but it put the idea in Matt’s head that he could go up and do something.  So he wandered accross to see what he could find in their collection.  Upon returning he revealed that they didn’t have a list — you just requested something and they had a look to see if they had it.  Very soon he was called up to do his turn singing Sex Bomb by Tom Jones.  He was pretty good, and I thought I’d get a photo.  Just as I got ready to take my picture I got called over by the MC “cameras aren’t allowed, take the picture quickly”.  A little puzzled, I did and went back to my seat.  Having thought about it a little their policy kind of makes sense.  The place is designed for the press to hang out, and it sometimes attracts some famous names wanting to go somewhere they can let their hair down without having to worry about ‘normal’ people hanging about (as if the press are more moral people than the rest of us).  If you mix these things up with a bit of alcohol and allow cameras in there’s a recipe for tabloid gold.  A little bit of time passes, a few more people do karaoke, including some more from our group (one duet got mic crashed by a girl from another group) and a few more groups turned up.  There were a few more people around our age now including a group of girls at the far end of the room.

A while ago Miss D and I watched a few documentaries by Dawn Porter, and if you’ve ever seen her then you might be aware of her retro dress sense.  This group of girls reminded me of her — one of them had a kind of 60s black dress on (she was also a similar build and had similar black hair) while another a multi-coloured, yellow based, dress.

Some more time passed and the place got more and more busy.  I had some more to drink, and people from our group got up and danced a bit (I even joined them at one point for about 40 seconds, before the song I got up for changed to Girls Aloud).  We slowly abandoned our table and as more people turned up a few of our chairs were taken by others.

It was about 20 past 2, while I was sitting happily minding my own business, that a girl came up to me and offered me her hand to dance.  It was the yellow-colourful dress girl.  It took me a moment to decide what to do — for some reason part of me wanted to turn her aproach down, like one of those times I have done something similar and then regretted it later on — but in the end I got up.  It didn’t take very long before we were dancing very close.  It moved on from dancing holding hands, to her putting her hand on my shoulder, me responding by putting my hand on her hip to us kissing all in about the space of a song and a half.  The kiss (in fact two, really), wasn’t very expected.  We were dancing looking over each others shoulder when she moved her head and just came in for it.  I wasn’t going to argue, but it wasn’t really what I was expecting.  After the first round of kissing I moved my face back to just over her shoulder, snuffling through her hair a bit (she had shortish (about shoulder length) blonde hair).  It crossed my mind to kiss her neck, but didn’t.  A moment or so later we were kissing again.

Following that she asked me if I had to leave with my friends and indicated the table where Matt had just got up.  To be honest I didn’t really hear what she said, but I said yes (I suppose it was true — had they been leaving I would have had to go).  She asked me for my phone and we stood there, heads together, while she saved her number in it… or at least tried to.  She’s called Amy.  I slinked off to the bar through the crowd and got another drink.  For the rest of the evening I tried to avoid her — I’d told her I was going (kind of) and I didn’t want her to see me and think I was just making excuses.  I saw her around the place a few times after that, once with her coat on sitting playing with her phone, but I don’t think she saw me.  One thing which did strike me is that I didn’t see her dancing with anyone else for the rest of the time I was there.  Perhaps that was a silly thing to do.

When I got back to the table I sat down, Vick sat on a near by seat, and looked at me.  “What?”, I said.  She looked.  “What?”, I shook my head questioningly.  “You’re a fast mover.”  I had been spotted.  I tried to explain it wasn’t much to do with me, but it didn’t work.  We left the club quarter past 3 and got taxis back to Vick’s flat.  My kiss was mentioned again in the taxi, I told them she gave me her number but that everyone would have forgotten by the morning, especially her!  Vick said she’d remind me.

I thought a lot about what I should do with her number.  Half 6 I decided I would text her, that way I could let her known I remebered her and that I enjoyed meeting her, tell her my name, and give her my number.  The ball would then be in her court and it would save me too much embarrasement if she didn’t much like me and was just very drunk.  I wrote the text and hit send but it wouldn’t go.  I tried again, but still no luck.  A closer look at the number showed it was one digit too long (in fact, on further investigation when I got back home, I discovered that the number is completely wrong — the code isn’t valid for a start).  Since then I’ve wondered: did she just get it wrong because she was drunk, or did she make it up?  Given she volunteered her number and I didn’t ask for it I think it must be the former, but that begs another question I’ve been asking myself: did she think about it next day wondering why I hadn’t got back to her?  I guess I’ll never know the answer to either of these questions — sadly it’s very unlikely that we’ll meet again, for one we live hundreds of miles from each other.

It would be nice to know, but I think I’m just going to have to chalk it up as a nice couple of moments and leave it at that.  Either way, a cute blonde journalist (who, to be honest, I’d like to know more about) isn’t a bad way to set about completing my new year’s resolution!

To be honest I don’t have much to write about over Christmas and New Year.  Christmas day was spent at my brother’s house in York.  My parents collected my Grandma on Christmas eve, she stayed at their house for the night, we went to York about lunch time on Christmas day, and then my parents took Grandma home again that night.  I got to stay at my brother’s for the night.  That was OK in the end.  I was a little worried about how that would go — my brother and I aren’t really all that close, although we do get on well, and I’m not really all that talkative — but it turned out fine.  We played a board game which I won, and my brother’s wife got a little bit tipsy which made conversation go a little more easily.

The plan for New Year’s eve was to go to Leeds and spend the night with my old theatre school friends.  That’s the usual New Year plan and I got an invitation via Facebook to go again this year.  So I said yes.  And then on the day before New Year’s eve I got another message: most of the people I knew who were going to the party were now not going to the party.  I was still welcome to go, but I would only really know one person (actually, I knew 4 or 5 people from previous year, but they aren’t really my friends… one of them I specifically wanted to avoid, in fact).  So I didn’t go.  I stayed in with my parents and played Monopoly.  I won.  The most irritating thing about that is that I had been invited to another party back down here which, had I known about the Leeds party in advance, I would have been able to get back for.  Oh well, we did get a good view of the fireworks at midnight from my parent’s hillside house.  I’m not complaining too much.

All in all it’s been a reasonable weekend, although I still didn’t get around to getting my accounts up to date.  I must do that this week.  Preferably tomorrow.

Friday was Hallowe’en and a group of people connected with work had organised a party at a local bar to which I was invited (I realise just because they wanted pictures of the night — a little earlier in the day Paul asked me “are you being photographer tonight” — but I’m used to that).  With it being Hallowe’en it was a fancy dress party.  With me being me I didn’t dress up.  We started off meeting up at the office where people got themselves dressed up and ready before walking to the bar.  The back room had been reserved and the plan was to get there about half 7.  As is expected with these plans we didn’t actually leave the office until about quarter past 8.  There was a good number of people there and we had booked a buffet which went down reasonably well, although there was too much of it (it ended up feeding a lot of people not in our party in the end).

I spent the evening snapping away.  I only took the one camera because I was expecting us to be moving on somewhere before the end of the night and I’m always concerned that clubs aren’t necessarily going to be very pro-gear friendly.  This restricted my scope a little but still, all in all, I took around 135 pictures and from that came up with about 60 of publishable quality (not job-quality, but that’s ok when they are just going to be used on Facebook).

After a few hours I’d pretty much run out of things to photograph so I decided to sit down for a bit.  Amy, the girl I mentioned above, came and sat with me.  “I haven’t spoken to you yet tonight”, she said.  So we sat and talked for a bit.  About what she’s doing (a placement from University doing something with chemicals — she’s studying chemistry and forensic science), about what I’m doing, about my university, about where we’re from, about her boyfriend.

It was interesting to get her side of the story — I’ve heard about the relationship from his side quite a bit, but having never met her I’d not been able to judge his comments, or hear what she had to say about things.  She’s not happy with him.  “He treats me like shit”, “it’s like I’m not here”, “I was worried all his friends hate me because of what he’s told them”.  I know what his friends think.  So I lie: “They don’t hate you”.  Then, because I’m nice and she seems a bit upset: “I like you at least”.  It works.  We hug.  I get called away because shots are on the cards — this is an important photo op.

A little later I’m standing by the bar with everyone else and she wander over again.  She stands next to me and puts my arm around her.  That’s ok I guess, I have plenty of girly friends who I’d do that with.  The next thing I know she wants a photo of us together, so we pose — typical friends-taking-a-picture-with-their-own-camera type pose, faces together, camera up high — and she takes a picture with her camera.  And then another.  And another.  Another.  And another.  I am summoned away again, this time to get a picture of Batman and the Joker.

TIme passes, the Joker wins costume of the night, and it is decided to go to Guildford to carry on the evening.  By this time most people have given up on the party and split to go home.  There are only 7 of us left and not many of us really think it’s worth going on to Guildford, especially not by £36 taxi.  I’m in two minds — I do actually quite like going out, despite what people think, and I’m happy to go on somewhere, but I’m not so keen on spending well over £170 to get us all to Guildford and then back home again — but I don’t have much else to do, so I figure I might as well.  Amy wants me to as well.  There’s a bit of a fuss getting into our taxi.  Amy gets in next to nick both facing forward and she signals that she wants me to sit next to her.  But Steve says he wants to sit facing forward, and I don’t mind facing the other way, so he goes to sit next to her.  This causes her to move so she’s on the other seat facing backwards, next to me.  The reason for this soon becomes clear — she wants to hold my hand.

The trip to Guildford is about 15 minutes.  Throughout this she keeps trying to hold my hand and I keep moving it away.  We finally arrive at the next bar, although I have no idea what it’s called.  We roll in and head for the bar.  There Harry buys everyone a drink.  Except me and, apparently, Amy.  So I offer to buy her one.  In fact, I offered to buy her boyfriend one.  I did this strategically.  I didn’t want to look like I was offering to buy just her a drink.  He already had one — Harry bought it.  In the time it took for me to get served everyone else had gone off to find somewhere to sit.  That left just the two of us.  She latched herself on to me and rested her head on my shoulder.  I didn’t respond.  We got our drinks and went to join the others.  There I strategically sat at the other side of the table from her and didn’t talk to her.  It worked, she talked to Harry.

Soon people were fed up of this nice comfy seat and wanted to go upstairs to, what turned out to be, another part of the bar which was busier and less enjoyable.  She grabbed my hand, and we moved to the other bar.  Once there, she put my arm around her again.  Only this time she pushed my hand down onto her bum.  And not only onto her bum, under her skirt onto her bum.  I kept trying to find a way to move it away: I’m talking to Steve so I’m going to have to gesticulate; I need to check what time it is; I need to take a photo…  When I moved my hand away she put hers under my shirt onto my back.  Hmm.  We stood by the door of the bar for a while, mostly because there wasn’t room to go anywhere else, until Harry found a table in the corner with spaces to sit.  So we pushed our way through to that.  On the way I decided to say something in her ear: “I have to work with Nick, I’d rather he didn’t find out…”.  “So would I”.  “I’m not the one doing anything wrong”.

Soon enough it was decided that everyone had had enough.  Nick was looking worse for wear, Steve and Matt were fed up, Freya had convinced Harry they should go home and I wanted to escape.  So it was decided to call it a night and we started to make our way back to the taxi rank.  As had become traditional by this stage, she grabbed my hand.  Not much happened for the first part of the walk to the taxi rank.  At one point she stopped to zip up her jacket while I carried on going.  A brief stop at the cash machine gave her chance to catch up, it also gave her chance to realise she trapped her hair in the zip.  “That wouldn’t have happened if you had done it”, she said to me, before continuing “although you’d probably rather zip it the other way”.  Oh dear.

Had I really given the impression I was that interested in her?  Sure, I’d been friendly — she seemed miserable when we were talking and she seemed like a nice girl — but I don’t think I’d done a huge amount to lead her on.  Perhaps I should have more obviously moved away from her when she put my arms around her.  Perhaps I should have just come out and said “I’m not willing to do this” rather than hope she’d get the message from other things I said.  I suspect I was too willing to cuddle, but that’s what I’m like.  That comes from the lovvie group I’ve grown up with — yes actors really are like that.  I think she just wanted attention.  I know she said her boyfriend doesn’t give her as much as she wants, and from the way he behaved that evening I can see that, so I suspect she was looking for it from somewhere else.  Anywhere else.  I’m looking forward to the fall out.  I have no idea what he saw or thinks he saw or thinks he thinks.  I guess I’ll find out.  She added me as a friend on Facebook, but other than that we haven’t spoken.  She posted a few comments on the photos I uploaded but nothing directly relating to me.  I’m curious, I think, to find out what she really thinks — was it all just drunken attention seeking, or does she think more of me than that?  Does she think I think more of her than that?

You know, there’s a small part of me which is really curious.  I never said no.  Sometimes I think we all crave a little attention.  Don’t we?