The one with the memory loss

This story might turn into a long one so I will start from the beginning….

I woke up at a reasonable hour on Saturday morning to go and watch the Wallabies game from the Larrick in Putney. I had taken along the girl and the Muppet met us there. The game started at 10am and considering it was before midday I wasn’t prepared to start drinking beers……. pause for shocked gasps……. so we decided a nice cider might be appropriate (it’s like a fruit juice right?).

The game was not all that convincing but a win is a win and I thought the new look team, only having been together for 2 weeks, with a new coach, faired pretty well. If anyone is asking (which I am sure you are not but it is my Blog so I will type it anyway) I probably wouldn’t have started Barnes with Giteau, instead bringing on Cross at inside (yes I am aware of the position change) to shore up the backline’s defence a bit better. I thought the pack did well but our front row is still appalling (more noticeably without the ELV’s in place) and Sharpe should be shelved for good (bring on the young talent) as he is only there because of his dominance in the lineout. But I digress…

After the rugby finished the girl headed off to get her hair done – which looks fabulous (is that what I am supposed to say?). The Muppet and I continued drinking before we were surrounded by Saffa’s for the next match. For some reason we decided to stay and cheer on the Welsh team. They certainly impressed me in the first half so it was quite a good afternoon with lots of drinks. After the game finished I was required to head to the Albion in North London to meet with a mate from Perth that was working in Paris. The Muppet had a ‘blindish date’ that night (he had only met her while being very drunk and didn’t recall what she looked like) so decided, contrary to my beliefs and persistent taunting, an afternoon drinking with me was not going to prepare him for it.

We downed our beers, left to some glorious sunshine and went our separate ways. It was about mid afternoon and I was feeling a little drunk but figured a tube ride may help to sober me up. I arrived at the bar and was (jealously) told I looked a little smashed. Taking this as a complement we continued to drink. There had gathered a large number of antipodeans so the drinking progressed rather well. At about 6pm the memory gets a little hazy, and this is where the story should of been ending…

Disclaimer: The following is a recount pieced together from the reports of the people who may have seen me that evening. I cannot attest to the accuracy of these facts (and as you all know I am not one to embellish a story…).

According to my mate from Paris we had some shots before I departed around 7pm to go meet the girl, my cousin and CM for dinner. I met the girl in Bank tube station before heading to Tooting Broadway. It was said that I was running all over the place trying to get phone reception as it is a large station and also connected to Monument, so the girl did an excellent job in finding me and getting me to Tooting. CM mentioned I had told her later upon exiting the tube I had gotten confused and thought that because it was still rather light (around 9.30pm) I had thought it was first thing in the morning and we had been out all night. We found my cousin and CM and headed to the restaurant. Apparently the restaurant was a vegetarian Indian cuisine type of place.

Allegedly I did enjoy the food (although without meat I am not convinced this was the case) and was rather talkative with the wait staff (which is probably the case). The reason for the dinner was to thank my cousin and CM for picking me up at the airport when I first arrived (all those many months ago) so I had kept demanding they eat more food. Towards the end of the evening Matt had some menu envy of CM’s dessert and I took it upon myself to order another one for him. I can only imagine his horror after the dessert arrived, as a joke, I swirled the spoon in it and sent it back exclaiming it was finished.

A few bottles of wine later we ended up being herded out of the place – but not before my lecturing of the owner on the 2 fundamental problems with his restaurant. The first being the fact I could only pay with cash and the second being the fact there was no meat on the menu. Apparently my argument was anytime I go into a place accommodating meat eaters there were always a few token veggie dishes to appease the grass eaters, and thus we should not be persecuted when entering the vegetarian domain. I hope he took it all in good fun because I would actually like to go and see if the food is any good (in a state where I would remember it).

From there I believe we headed back to SW19 for some well earned slumber. It was estimated I got to bed at around 2am. Surprisingly, after a good 16hr session, my hangover was only a Force 7 on the Beaufort scale. I am thinking that it was a direct result of my Nacho / Fajita breakfast combo but will try my theory out this weekend and let you know.
Thinking back about the whole day I was rather impressed by my efforts to crawl around all the different areas of London (clearly most of it in a less than quality state) and wind up home unscathed. On further consideration (I can’t believe I am going to type this) the new alcohol ban on the tube probably helped me out in giving me a few small ‘breather’ sessions in between.