Awoke feeling mildly shit, after about 3 hours of restless sleep, the second day of a party-over had started.
How did I get here ?
After visiting a friend I'd met online up at Gants Hill on Saturday morning and visiting Tower Bridge on the way, taking a long walk through a few Wharfs, yuppie housing developments and up the road to Bermondey station on the Jubilee line, it amazes me how easy it is to get around this city, even when things are not working exactly as they should.
For the life of me, I have no idea how far it is by road from Wimbledon to Gants Hill. For all I know, it's the equivalent distance from Sandton to Randburg, except by a hugely roundabout route (excuse the intended pun)
As it was, total travel time without my tourist stop-offs was most likely around one hour. National rail from Wimbo to Waterloo, Jubile line from Waterloo to Sutton, Central line to Gants End.
Wonderful.
Wonderful until I was left high and dry (excuse the intended pun) at 3am Sunday morning, wobbling around the streets of Earlsfield in search of a train or bus. I had a choice of a 3 hour wait in cold rainy streets, returning to the party completely smashed or hailing a taxi.
I chose the latter and somehow informed the cabbie that I wanted to get to Wimbledon.
He took me to my destination and fleeced me of £10 thank you very much. If I knew the way, I would've walked, or rather staggered.
I walked the mile back from Wimbledon central to my B&B and awoke at 6.30pm to someone hammering into my head through a layer of cotton wool.
I was still fully clothed, having failed to climb entirely onto the bed. I was sort of leaning on it. I think that I must've got part way on and slid off.
My head was reeling with party flashbacks, some were pleasant, others along the lines of "ooooh noooo, what did I say to that person ?" "Did I really tell her that ?" "Oh God no, I told someone they looked and sounded like Paul Weller - arghghghg"
I somehow managed to crawl into bed just as it was getting light and suddenly found something blissfully wonderful about this house I'm residing in, not a squeak of sound all morning. Talk about respect for the living dead.
After a crashed out 4 hours, I painfully hauled my boogied-down-body out of bed, showered, walked to the bus stop, got down to Wimbledon and sat in a coffee shop feeling miserable.
No amount of strong coffee was going to do anything to improve my fragile eggshell mind and body, so I retired to the B&B for a few hours and daydreamed with the TV on.
Later that day, I found life at the pub was no solace. I'd neglected to charge my laptop battery, so I had a miserable hour and 10 minutes of use. I drank a dull cider which didn't want to go down and endured a desperate dejected frame of mind.
Time to go back and sleep.
Today started badly, a second day of hangover, grey skies and drizzle. I had to get up and out to continue my search for a job. God, how depressing things were before noon. The residual greyout party-over was still with me.
This time, the coffee must've kicked in, because it kicked my arse into gear and I went hunting for a local laundromat where I can get my washing done then up the hill to Wimbledon village to the cheery Natural coffee shop, with free internet access AND a wall socket for my laptop - BLISS !
I did some job searching and emailing and fully made use of the services, sitting for a good 3 hours with one cup of coffee (which lasted 10 minutes)
As I was leaving, I got a job lead - another agent phoning me - great stuff, except for one thing, my battery died out half way though the conversation.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK IT !
I virtually ran from Wimbledon Village down to the B&B in about 15 minutes, popped in a spare battery and frantically tried to find the person who called, using my phones call register - no luck.
Then suddenly, they phone back - thank God !
Had a quick chat with agent, will call tommorrow, good chance of interview with prospective employer - great stuff.
So here I sit in the pub, replete after two cheap but filling side dishes - Mash and Vege, working mans nosh for an unemployed web dev.
Pint of Plastered Publican Stuck to the Roof of my Mouth Ale please !
