Twenty four hours (ish) in Hertfordshire.

I try to only blog about things of consequence. Last weekend I went on a spontaneous jaunt to visit a university pal who resides in Hitchin, Hertfordshire. When I mused that I'd like to write a blog post about it but nothing particularly exciting happened, she protested and proclaimed that during my visit I singled handedly 'turned Hitchin into a swingers club' . While I must assert that I did not technically do any swinging, here is a concise 24hr breakdown of my trip.

12:30 I sit on the Kings Cross -> Cambridge train, fidgety with excitement and anticipation to get off at Hitchin to see Emma, the babest of all babes. A man with cold, dead eyes like a shark is sitting opposite me and keeps glancing at me and leering. I resolve to completely psych him out by closing my book, folding my arms and staring unblinkingly back at him until he cracks and moves seats.

13:00 We eat lunch and I marvel at how picturesque Hitchin is. A man is playing a violin in the street as I practically inhale my sweet potato fries. A wedding is happening in the local church that we can see from the café we’re sitting outside. A woman falls over in the street and everyone is too busy ooh-ing and aah-ing at the bride to notice.

13:30 My bag breaks. I knew the strap was going to go but stubbornly continued to jam it full of stuff so it could barely close and promise myself that ‘I’ll definitely get it fixed when I get home!’ I present the broken bag to the man in Timpson in a distressed manner not dissimilar to a woman taking her sick child to the doctor.

14:00 While bag paediatrician works his magic we go and drink G&Ts in the sunshine and I take such a flawless photo of Emma that it practically breaks the internet, Kim Kardashian style. My phone exploded with notifications. Boys were messaging me asking who my friend is. Well done Emma. 

15:00 I am presented with a belated birthday present in the form of a rather tongue in cheek literary gift of Nietzsche’s Aphorism’s on Love and Hate and a beautiful rose quartz ring. I am informed that rose quartz is meant to bring you love and optimistically force it onto one of my chubby little sausage fingers before glancing around expectantly for my future wife. 

17:00 My bag is fixed and we venture back to Emma’s house to begin to get ready to go out. I steadily progress through the many stages of eye make up application that I imagine we have all experienced before a night out.

1. I’m going to go for a smoky eye! Yeah! I’ll look super sexy.

2. Perhaps I have overcommitted. Where even is your ‘crease’?

3. It’s not blending. Why won’t it blend?

4. I can’t possibly leave the house looking like this.

4. My liquid eyeliner isn’t even.

5. Now it almost is, but it’s really thick.

5. I’ll just even it out with a little more on this eye.

6. Good lord, what have I done to myself?

5. I didn’t realise you had to have a fine art degree to do this.

6. Take it all off and start again.

The end result after hours of make-up turmoil.

20:30 Upon arrival at pre-drinks, Emma spills tonic everywhere and I am then introduced to hoards of people who’s names I know I won’t remember. The music choices are questionable. I desperately want to hijack Spotify but I must remember that when you first meet people it’s apparently ‘rude’ to deafen them with dirty Dutch electro house.

22:00 People attempt to teach me how to play the treacherous drinking game that is ‘Chandelier’. I mostly nod in feigned understanding at each rule and resolve just to drink whenever somebody tells me to. I do however manage to down the dirty pint before the numerical countdown from eight in the generic ‘We like to drink with (name) ‘cause (name) is our mate’ chant has even begun. I hope that this has scored me some ‘cool’ points with Emma’s friends (points which were subsequently lost when I fall over in the kitchen trying to stroke the hostess’ cat).

23:30 We all have vouchers for free G&Ts in Pitcher and Piano and excitedly claim them. Someone carelessly spills a drink all down the back of my jumpsuit and I politely reassure them that ‘it’s fine!’ as I mentally scrawl their name onto my list of sworn enemies. Emma ‘becomes official’ with the guy she is seeing. I decide that the love ring must be working.

01:30 I sit in a very hip members only bar. Suddenly everyone is kissing everybody else and I briefly worry that I have inadvertently stumbled into some kind of sex dungeon. There is a glass vase full of popcorn on the bar itself and I devoured at least thirty percent of it whilst I was waiting to be served.  I sip my gin and note that I am surrounded by very attractive people, one of whom is sprawled across my lap in the form of a definitely-not-so-heterosexual pretty redheaded woman. I smugly consider whether I managed to get myself in this glorious situation by being the sexiest creature alive before I recall that mere hours previously I may or may not have been sick in my own hands in Pitcher and Piano.

09:00 I wake up, extremely disoriented, in bed next to Emma and find a chip under my pillow. We are joined in bed by Daisy the long haired miniature dachshund and begin to unpick the night’s happenings.

09:30 A true breakfast of champions is consumed, during which I am rather abruptly sort-of-dumped via a Whatsapp message by the girl I had just started seeing. A cracking addition to any hangover. I half heartedly push a piece of bacon around my plate with a fork while Emma gives me a motivational pep talk about ‘meeting the right person’. I decide that the love ring doesn’t work after all.

11:00 I can’t get a seat on the train home and have to stand up between Paddington and Reading which admittedly isn’t far but when you’re hanging like a bat it feels like an approximately 650854 mile journey. When I eventually manage to sit down, I am exasperated to realise that I have chosen a seat next to a very strange woman with absolutely no understanding of the concept of personal space. I busy myself by deleting all of the hideous/embarrassing/encriminating photos from the night before from my phone so that when I glance through them again I can imagine that we epitomised dignity and gracefulness.

11:30 I open my purse to find what I thought was the £40 I took out at the beginning of the night and praise myself for somehow managing to have a great night for free. I spend it all in Topshop to reward myself and then upon closer inspection of my finances it transpires that I actually spent the first £40 and took then just took out another, which I promptly spent. Good financial awareness, drunk Rosie.

12:45 As I cross the threshold of my house, a snivelling and hungover wreck, my bag breaks again. I resolve that this must be the universe’s way of telling me to maybe stay at home next weekend.

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