A Day of Rest

So SH left this morning. I'm quite sad about it- but the upside is that she's managed to get herself a job offer in London and may very well start the process of moving here. Which would be amazing. So fingers crossed about that and lets hope this is just a temporary see you later more than anything else.

I may also see her next month in DC if I'm still going away when I intend to which is a slight up in the air at the moment. My work is so very busy that they are considering (and I offered) to pay to move my tickets and exams until after this major project is finished mid-June. It's not like I'm going home for a specific 'date', and it's more that I travel in the shoulder seasons because the tickets are cheap- not because it's when I ideally want to travel. So I should find out the answer to that this week. But if I stick to the original schedule, SH may come to see her parents during Easter weekend and I'll be at my dad's house and basically that's the same place. So yay!

So the week. What a week. What an impossible and intensive and non-stop week. My intention is no to leave my house at all today frankly. I will probably have to go to the grocery store around the corner, but that's it. Then I'm running back inside. So where to begin?

AS arrived last Thursday and we had a good evening catching up at Rasa in Stoke Newington. Went to work on Friday and SH arrived that morning. I had arranged Friday night drinks out with office people which turned out to be a pretty good sized crowd and lots of fun. There were a couple points of note that day- first was that J and I had something of a tiff, though not exactly. It was all about the fact that I'm not a vegetarian and he is. Plus I'd invited him out to join everyone Friday (and meet my friends) and he was being a bit reluctant about it all, so there was some tension there. But he did end up coming towards the end when some people had left already, and it was cool actually so that was okay, but I suppose it's important to note as a place-marker in things with J because things have been progressing there too, like I said, a busy week.

So anyway, as people got drunker on Friday and a little bit more daring, we somehow decided to dare SH to go to the ladies, take off her shirt and walk back out into the bar. Which she did! And then she did it again, and then, just for fun, sitting back at our table, she took her shirt off a third time. A good way to start off the vacation week I'd say! A sure sign that the madness had begun.

We all stayed up way too late talking and late on Saturday headed to Borough Market which was fun. We started off by eating at Feng Sushi which was okay- though I think not the best sushi place in London. Then we hit the market and bought all sorts of stuff to eat for the week. Saturday night SH came with me to meet up with AS and JCM who I had not seen since I was 17. We got a take-away from Afghan Kitchen in Islington which I'd been wanting to eat at for ages but somehow hadn't. And then we hung out at JCM's house, eating good food and laughing and telling stories while keeping an eye on the lunar eclipse. It was a really fun night, but another really late night.

AS was staying with JCM, so it was just me and SH. We got up on Sunday and decided to go to London Alternative Market as I'd forgotten it was on and SH had never been to one and really wanted to. So off we went to Clapham Junction, again, late. It was as it normally is, though perhaps a bit crowded. Saw B and some other people I knew which was okay. SH also got to try on a corset for the first time which was fun. Actually it was kind of cool because the guy who sells corsets is usually at London Fetish Fair and the last time I went I convinced him to give LAM a try. So seeing him there, he said I'd convinced him which was nice, and I verified that as I expected, he was doing a pretty good business at the new venue (which I'd said in my argument was a bit short on lots of clothing options).

So leaving LAM we headed to Coffee Cake and Kink which SH had wanted to stop by again during this trip. There we had caramel slice and hot chocolate and sat downstairs chatting for ages which was really nice. Eventually though evening plans needed to begin. SH was going to play poker with a guy who is a London client of hers and she had planned to meet up with, and I was meeting up with J as it was his birthday. So we left CCK and went our separate ways, just starting on our relative evenings.

J's birthday was a low-key thing but enjoyable. The weather was horrible, so after meeting at Liverpool street, we ducked into a pub to try and wait out some of the rain. It didn't let up though so we tucked under my too small umbrella and headed to this club on Brick Lane to hear a band that he was interested in seeing. Which was good, but I wasn't dressed for being in a crowded and too-hot club. After most of the set J said he wanted to leave because it was just too hot and humid and unbearable so we left there to head to a curry house on Brick Lane for some food. We ended up in this restaurant that had artwork on the walls that was truly astounding and would not have looked at all out of place on the side of a van. Then we headed back to mine.

So seeing as it was J's birthday, I had to do something a bit special. I'd gotten him a thoughtful gift (I thought) that was appropriate given our short dating time frame and we also tried 'new things' that he was interested in. To be fair, it was just good timing as the new things he was interested required some... equipment. And it happened to arrive in time for his birthday. So that was an interesting evening. In an objective way. It's cool to be able to manipulate your partners responses. It's cool to see the effect you have on someone else. But to me it was interesting in an interesting way, not a 'hot' way. Which I suppose helps clarify my own sexual taste and interests. Still, it was a good night, and I think J would say, a very good birthday, which was definitely the point, so all good.

Monday morning it was up and away to work- the last thing I really wanted to be doing after my busy weekend, but my busy weekend was only the start of my busy week! Maybe I'll end this post here and pick up the story in a little while. Trust me when I say, this was really only the beginning.