I knew from the moment I woke on Friday that I was going to struggle with the pace later on in the day. It was only recently that the stag do had been moved to the Friday at the end of the month, and when that fell after the Develop Conference I knew I was going to be hard pushed to be firing on all cylinders.
As it fell on the second of our free half-days from work, we all took the opportunity to score some lunch in the usual place before heading into town for a pub crawl that was set to last until 10pm, when the table was booked in the Chinese restaurant for a meal.
As Fliss had a work thing on (more about that when the time is right), I had to wait on word from her as to whether I needed to go and pick up Elisha from nursery or not. So my first few pints were of shandy and only succeeded in filling me up with gas before Fliss called to say she’d meet me. Fliss offered to take the car and go and get Elisha, but as I was feeling under dressed I decided to go home with her, get changed, and head back into town on the train.
In doing so, I rejoined the rest of the guys a couple of pubs later and, as you’d expect, they were all a lot louder and a lot merrier than when I last saw them. I did try to play catch up, but fatigue meant that I’d find myself yawning in mid-conversation every now and again. That and staring into space without realizing it.
I was glad to get to the restaurant when the time came – standing in a bar when you’re dead on your feet isn’t the best way to spend an evening. A couple of people had split off from the main group by the time we were all ordering our meals, though – probably a good thing, as the table would have been a little cramped otherwise. The meal itself went very well – all the food was tasty, even if we did seem to have a bit much of everything.
I stayed as Dave’s right hand man at the table until the bitter end (half past midnight), watching everyone else pile into a taxi as I waited with a couple of Dave’s non-work friends for a lift home. It was good of them to drop me, too, as it would have cost me a fortune to get home at that time of night.
It’s a shame I wasn’t more up for the night, because as stag do’s go it had all the ingredients I like. Hopefully I’ll be more on form for the wedding in a couple of weeks time. 🙂
