It was a fun, if weird, weekend.

As some of you might now (if we’re friends on Facebook), it was my brother’s birthday on Thursday. To celebrate, we went out on Friday. I decided to take him to Queen of Hoxton, since it’s one of my favourite bars in London (subjective opinion, ok?) and he had never been there before (what??)

As usual, I got a bit lost trying to get there on foot, despite starting our journey in St. Paul’s, where he picked me up. I’ve walked to Shoreditch so many times, and each time I have the feeling I’m walking there for the first time. It’s annoying, but also amusing, since I seem to get most of the trip right, and then suddenly get confused at a junction and take the wrong turn.

After my brother laughed at me and made a couple of remarks (mainly because he had pointed out the right turn to take at the time), we arrived safely.

Now, let me give you some background…

I am a pain in the backside. I have many issues, as any other human being, but people seem to think I give good advice, who knows why. Sometimes, I get into the crazy, life-is-awesome, motivational sort of mode, and boy, do I go on and on about it. Of course, all these apply to others, but never to me.

I say (constantly) that all my positiveness is chosen. I don’t wake up in the mornings and think oh, what a beautiful day!, with a smile on my face and jump out of bed and dance my way to the shower. I normally wake up and think kill me, now and grumpily get out of bed, wrapped in layers of clothes as I feel the cold, on my way to a shower. The shower is what really wakes me up and gets me ready to face the world.

Normally, I spend 10-15 minutes in bed, thinking about my options and gathering the strength to get up. I am an all-time-of-day sort of person. I like my mornings, I like my evenings, and don’t particularly hate the inbetweens, it’s just getting up that kills me.

Going back to the topic at hand. I make myself think positively and force a smile upon my face. Once you’ve done it for long enough, you actually don’t have to fake it anymore. It’s all little tricks to make me enjoy the daily routine.

So, lately I’m trying to go a step further and to go out more, network more, meet more people (read guys) and be busier in general, to sort of complete my life and go to bed tired at night. For this, I’ve been reading articles, books, I write here, and I’m adopting a can-do sort of attitude. I am trying to force myself out of my comfort zone and do more stuff that scares me.

How does this relate to Friday night?

Well, I decided to preach to my brother’s friend. You can do this, you should do that, be happy, be strong, brainwash, brainwash. At some point, bless her, she said I should be her life coach. I even made her give out her CV because, hey, what’s the worst that could happen?

You (I, we) need to get out there more, need to do more things that scare us, or at least that make us uncomfortable. You need to challenge yourself a bit more.

On Friday I decided to be charming and funny and to chat to everyone I could. I guess beer had something to do with it, if judging by the hangover I had the following day.

So, Friday…

Friday was a night of making new friends, and meeting new people. Friday was about the bouncer, whose name I can’t remember, and how we chatted and joked for a bit. He found me while I was queuing up at the end of the night (talking to a group of guys who had helped me skip half of the queue) trying to retrieve my sports bag from the cloakroom, and who took me to the front of the massive queue, handing out the ticket to the person there and getting my bag in a matter of seconds, as opposed to maybe an hour. He then walked me outside and gave me a hug, wishing me and my group a good night.

Friday was about Ed (I believe that was his name), a crazy dude. He was a hipster, if the flat visor of his cap and his thick-framed glasses are an indication. He kept on coming to visit us and joke with us, by the end of the night, my hand hurt from the many high fives we gave each other. He told me he was supposed to DJ at 11pm, and I pointed out it was already 12.15, so he had missed his slot. After arguing with me about the time, I showed him his Casio watch, he realised I was right, swore, and went to the DJ booth; only to return minutes after with a big grin on his face, still drunk, and claiming everything was alright.

Friday was also about Toby, and incredibly sexy man. He wore a leather jacket, and a beard. His dark, long hair tied up in a bun totally checked the right boxes with me. He had blue eyes and a beautiful smile, but he was drunk, and he was dumb (sorry, Toby, with the beautiful bun and beard). Five minutes after trying to hold a conversation with him had me running back for cover. He crashed my beard-bun combo fetish, but only for a few minutes.

It was also about Boris, who was from Paris. He was fairly new in London, I can’t remember when he arrived, and he was nice enough. We started talking after my newly met friend said she fancied him, and I said hi to him. It took me less than two minutes to deflect the conversation to her, and none to leave them alone.

I realised people, especially guys, are not scary at all. The fact that I could chat up everyone and anyone on Friday, and even be a bit snarky (like when a guy touched my back tattoo and told me he had been looking for the girl with the dragon tattoo all night, and I pointed out that it wasn’t a dragon, but a phoenix!) proved to me that I really shouldn’t be scared of strangers. Beer had probably a lot to do with it, but who am I to judge?

It took us ages to go back home, and it was around 4am when we were through the door. Saturday was tough. We stayed in watching rugby and the Olympics; I, longing for the snow…

On Sunday I went for a run with a friend in the morning. It was cold, it was painful, it was fun. The more I visit Greenwich Park, the more I hate it and the more I love it. Its hills seem insurmountable, and in reality they are to me! We started off with a brisk walk and ran, avoiding the main hill for as long as possible, climbing in ziz-zag and running on the bottom part of the park. The climb back up to our starting point was tough, so we had to walk it.

Sunday was spent tidying, doing laundry and watching TV. It was nice, even if I cancelled some plans I had in the evening. I think I was drained of energy from all the socialising on Friday.

Tonight, it’s Zumba time! I’m still tired, and I have a blister on my left ankle, but I can’t miss the fun!

Finally, a small half-announcement: I’m trying to think of a series of posts, likely to be about sewing and crafts, and inviting one of my friends to help.
She will probably be the person making stuff while I document the whole process. So far, we’re meeting up next week to watch together the first episode of series 2 of The Great British Sewing Bee, in BBC Two. More updates to follow!