Social Outings & Suzy's 30th Birthday

Friday

Friday night was our first social outing in work and after a couple of pints in Morrisons, we moved next door to Belfast Superbowl. We split into two teams of 4/5 each which was done by the school process of picking your best friends and leaving others feeling dejected. Why we couldn't have arranged this ourselves I'm not sure but it made the decision process quick and painful for some. I was the captain of one team and thought I would make it seem fair by picking the 3 people closest to me which meant my co-worker being shunted into the other team which she gave me a scolding for but it was only in jest and we began to roll.

Needless to say our team had superior bowling skills and we won both games. Nevertheless, everyone really enjoyed themselves and we decided to make it a monthly event. Unfortunatly bowling really takes it out of my arm and it's still sore on the forearm with a myseterious bruise that only a drunken night out can provide. Bruising is a drunken badge of honour and the more unkown its aquisition, the better story you can make up as to how it could have happened.

After our victory, we moved back into Morrisons again and continued our drinking unabated. Clare mentioned that her and boyfriend had recently purchased a 6 berth yacht and we would all be invited onto it next summer - w00t! A lot of nonesense was also talked about both work and non-work related. It's a difficult juxtaposition when on a work outing. You spend more time awake in work than you spend awake at home and therefore spend more time sitting beside your work collegues than your partner at home which makes it difficult to frame outside references in for any sustained period of time before recomencing work-related conversation.

The hardened few that remained moved on for pizza and Fibber Magees for a final pint. I staggered off home and after a glass of white wine, hit the sack quicker than a baker.

Saturday

I awoke on Saturday morning feeling slightly worse for wear and after swallowing two Ibuprofen, returned to bed for another few hours. I resurfaced around mid-day and took another two pills and curled up in a ball and moaned for a while. I had to be at Kings Hall at 4pm to meet up with Suzy, Ian, Don, Keith and Heather for Planet Fun but once again I had partied too hard the night before and if thrown about would no doubt spew yesterdays slice of pizza over some poor bastard - upside down. Unfortunately when I phoned Suzy, I got through to her answer-machine and when asked to leave a message, Lou gave me a fit of the giggles making my excuse look weaker than 20 cups of tea made from the same bag.

By around 5pm, I broke through the phase of feeling sorry for myself and managed to eat a slice of toast to quell the rumbling stomach syndrome. I climbed into the shower and washed away a few sins from the night before and felt much better.

Lou and I made our way to Ulsterville and picked up Colin and Brian and headed to the Jharna for the birthday meal. It was good to catch up with people I hadn't seen for a while and then Suzy was surprised by a very lovely cake and a huge bunch of flowers that nobody could see her through. Afterwards we headed back to Ulsterville and partied until 3am when our collective eyelids became heavier than a tonne of bricks. Time to visit the sandman under the influence again!

Sunday

Sunday morning was spent lying in bed but fortunately in a better state than the day before. The afternoon was taken up playing our game at Ulsterville where my character was blind but still managed to kick ass before having his sight restored and getting killed only to be revived by Keith to fight another battle. Sunday evening consisted of watching some Scrubs and a bizarre film called Cannibal Holocaust which was a faux-documentary/horror film about a group of renegade film students coming into contact with cannibal tribes in the Amazon jungle. It was truely bizarre and unsettling to watch. [2/5]