After my slightly introspective piece last time around, I thought I come back to my normal ways and boy, was it a busy Xmas and not to mention the TBW get together, not sure whether I should mention that on here – people might start recognising themselves..
It was at one of those very first Xmas parties of the season that I met Carla. My client was a new media company awash with money from the new dot com boom and so had gone all out for their Xmas party, the party itself was held in a big warehouse like building on the edges of Kings X, in fact it took the cabbie an extra fifteen minutes to find the place. Getting into the place though, it was as if you were transformed to a winter wonderland, fake snow everywhere, waitresses dressed as Santa’s little helpers in the smallest outfits they could find – I swear they give them all uniforms at least one size small and I’m sure most of the hostess were pretty much holding their breath in the whole night. As a piece de resistance, they even had a naked guy playing the piano, I felt quite sorry for him, the warehouse wasn’t the warmest of places and I could see women vainly trying to get a peek while chatting to him. He tried to keep his legs closed though, didn’t need to, the cold had shrivelled it to the size of a cocktail sausage anyway.
I was at the bar when I first saw Carla on one of the sofas chatting away excitedly with a black haired girl (Jane, her flatmate, I came to know later). About 45, red hair and the most piercing green eyes you have ever seen. I got a drink and went over and introduced myself – a pretty easy thing at these do’s because you can start safely with the question of how you know client X and then it flows from there. I learnt that she had moved to the UK from Italy about ten years ago and had setup her own interior design business in south west London and had designed the layout of the clients new offices, hence her invite. Jane, her flatmate was a design student who had come along as company. Even though it is habit, I did not even bother scanning to check for a ring this time around after they had mentioned that they shared a flat – I do try to genuinely avoid the single ones, I mean, why hit on them when they have a chance of finding happiness with ONE if such a person exists. The married ones however, are always a different story…
