A tale of two hangovers

The first one was mine. I was staying with the lovely R&J in Brixton in between two days of training in London.

The first day was great, I learnt some interesting things, wished I'd done it six months ago but still. I left happy. It was a beautiful afternoon, and I walked from Temple to Tottenham Court Road to have a drink with an ex-colleague and generally felt quite the metropolitan girl (though admittedly most of them aren't clutching a sweaty A-Z).

But then I had to get myself to R&J's. They live very near Loughborough Junction station, and I had directions, so I felt pretty confident. Last thing to do was get a bus four stops from opposite Brixton police station.

Arsing bastard London bus drivers. Do they want to help you? No they do not. The first bus I got on was, in fairness, the wrong bus, so I got off and went to another bus stop.

The next bus driver told me I was on the wrong side of the road, so I got off and crossed the road. The *next* bus driver told me I was on the wrong side of the road. I protested a bit that they couldn't *both* be the wrong side of the road, but eventually got off and crossed the road.

The *next* bus driver waved me down the bus without answering the Loughborough Junction question, but then refused to drive off and started shouting at me for not having a ticket. But I tried to buy one! I said. I want to go to Loughborough Junction!

He shouted at me some more, I didn't understand what he was saying, but he eventually deigned to sell me a ticket, although not to tell me where to get off. But I worked that out for myself.

I was only half an hour late, but all vestiges of metropolitanness had evaporated, and I drank a lot of wine. Far too much wine. So much wine I can't remember going to bed. Not a good idea when you have a training course the next day.

And I felt like I was going to die. I got there early and sat in some gardens with a coffee and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps and hoped these would help.

They didn't. And nor did the fact that the course was essentially 130 powerpoint slides delivered over six hours in a slightly overheated room, broken up with some strange vegetarian nuggets for lunch and several trips to the loo.

But all my own fault. Never. Again. Honest.

The second hangover was M's. His was gained by more conventional means, ie drinking too much in the pub on Saturday night. What was notable was the speed with which it became apparent he was going to have a mother of a hangover, and the fact that he had to take it to our Sunday Neighbourhood Drinks.

The former was odd... he just kind of went. One minute, playing the piano, showing off his website, chatting happily, the next a confused drunk person with a terrible case of hiccups. He fell asleep before his hiccups left and there I was lying next to a man who was snoring and hiccuping at the same time. I've never heard anything like it. Zzzzz-HIC! Zzzzz-HIC!

The latter was just unfortunate. I made him come with me, because Neighbourhood Drinks are scary, and to his eternal credit he did, though he did leave about 20 minutes later to go home and lie down.

I like to think this has improved our cool rating with our neighbours (rock and roll, etc), but I suspect not.

joella