Last week was pretty good as things go. It didn’t feel it at the time, but looking back I can’t really remember anything awful happening, so that’s a start, although my memory is not really my strong point, except when it comes to random ‘facts’, occasional notable instances from my past or hurtful things that have been said to me. Yeah, not so helpful. But in this case, sort of a good thing.
My weekend was both eventful and quiet in equal measures, but lots of fun. On Friday evening, we went to the student bar on campus. It was a warm, sunny evening, and that place has lots of outdoor seating as well as areas of grass to sit on (even though half of it is in shade by that time of day). We were hoping to have a drink with Shoulders and Kitty, who were visiting from Australia, both old colleagues who were now married and living back in Australia (Kitty is from there originally and came here to work and travel for a couple of years. Shoulders is English and moved there after she went back home to be with her). Shoulders worked here for about 10 years and is quite a character with a wide circle of friends.
We were expecting them at about 5-ish, but then heard he had been to the Isle of Wight to visit his Dad, and wasn’t going to make it until about 8. I had been looking forward to seeing them both, but by the end of the day, I was starting to feel tired and not sure I was in the mood. A group of us headed over and I started feeling better after we had been there a while, chatting with different people and seeing other old colleagues who used to work with us and knew Shoulders. His last day at work had been about a week before he was due to leave the country. That evening, we had gone out for leaving drinks, him armed with about £60 from his boss, with an order to get some shots in. £60 might not sound like an overwhelming amount, but in a student bar with student prices, it’s rather lethal.
The night was really good fun, but had got quite messy. After drinks at the more sedate student bar (which is where older students and staff members drink) and a hat with dangly corks and an inflatable kangaroo doing the rounds, we headed over to the real student bar, where the undergrads hang out, the glasses are plastic and there is a nightclub next door. At that point there were only a few of us left – me and Samson (about 3 weeks into our relationship), Holmes, Miss T, Dee, Shoulders and a girl I didn’t know who used to work in our department before I did. I blogged about the rest of the evening and the morning after at the time it happened.
Anyway, this bar was the scene of the crime, the last place on campus Shoulders had been before leaving. The place where we subsequently learned he had head-butted a friend of a student and then punched him in the face. Things had obviously worked out OK, in that he had still managed to leave the country and things with Kitty were fine. It was just weird knowing that we were back here just over 16 months later and a lot of things had changed, but in many ways things were exactly the same. When Shoulders arrived later on, he was without Kitty, who had planned to come with him when he was planning to come at about 5, but had to give it a miss at the later time as she had tickets to go to the theatre with a friend. Samson told us about his dad, who was very unwell as a result of alcohol abuse and who was now living on the Isle of Wight in a care home. They had been to visit him that day, which is why he had arrived later than planned. It was really sad hearing about it and must have been a difficult experience for him, especially as he said his dad didn’t even know who he and his sister were when they first arrived. I thought back to the evening he left and remember someone saying that he must have drunk so much more than usual, as he usually kept his drinking levels reasonable because when he drank a lot he ‘got like his dad’.
It sounded like he remembered hardly any of that night, which I suppose made me feel better in the sense that it made his out-of-character (for what I knew) behaviour make more sense. He showed me his hand that he had broken when he punched the guy, which now had titanium in one part instead of bone. He told us about what had happened, at least according to the other guy’s statement, which sounded like a complete misunderstanding. He told us about having to go to court, that he had to pay compensation to the guy and that he go through immigration OK and didn’t get his hand operated on until he got to Oz. Things sounded like they were going really well for him and Kitty and that he wasn’t missing too much of England other than his friends and family.
Samson was speaking to some old colleagues and I remained with Gannet and his long-time friend who I have heard him talk about but have never met. It was fun having a chat to people I didn’t know so well and having a laugh, even though we ended up standing for the whole evening and my ankles started to kill me. At one point, Shoulders asked me how things were going with Samson (since he played a large part in getting us together) and said that without wanting to get too soppy, it was really nice to see us together. People always say that we are a good couple and although it is nice to hear, it always makes me think of how many people will hate me if we were ever to break up. I caught up with some old workmates later on – the guy who had been my line manager in my first role here and a good friend of his who had also worked in our department (in a different section) and was on the interview panel with him when I interviewed for that job. The have all remained in university admin, just at different institutions. It was really good to catch up with them, not having seen either of them for at least a year.
Shoulders ended up heading off some time around 10pm, having had a long and tiring day. He gave hugs to everyone and I told him that, without wanting to get too soppy, I was really glad he’d worked his magic to get me and Samson together, as he is a lovely guy. Gannet left a bit later (or was it earlier) and I saw him stagger off, then randomly saw him again about 5 minutes later, coming to tell me he was leaving. “We don’t have to hug it out,” he said when I went to give him a hug (he is over a foot taller than me), but I explained it by saying that the tip-toeing was helping me to stretch out my aching calves. (Samson found this particularly funny when I told him later, as he said Gannet had come back especially to say goodbye to me.) We talked a little longer in the small group of us that remained, then Samson and I decided to make a move sometime just before 11pm. We stopped off at Subway on the way home as we were both starving. I had forgotten how good the steak and cheese sub is, and laughed when I recalled The Mrs reminding me how often I used to eat Subway, because I always used to have a six-inch in my bag whenever I saw her.
I went back to Samson’s and we talked for a while before crawling into bed, both feeling rather sleepy. Samson kept asking if I had enjoyed myself, as he knew I had been feeling a little bit low and not in the mood to go out earlier on. He was glad I had enjoyed myself and liked seeing me having a good time. It had been a lot of fun catching up with so many people and having so many previous colleagues around – it felt like it could have been two years earlier, except I was feeling less shy than I did back then and not such an outsider. I guess that’s a small bit of progress.
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