Unusual evening out

I was thoroughly enjoying feeling able to revive my social life again, with inviting people over for dinner. But I wasn't the only one who was trying to be sociable once in a while! Laura, who had been one of my recent guests, then suggested dinner with the teaching team. And the idea was well-received! So on an early Tuesday night staff started to descend onto the foyer of one of our buildings. We wanted to go early; straight from work, and done early enough to be able to go sing in a choir, put a kid to bed, and such things.

When we were almost complete we decided to go. We'd text the late person; this was Dei, the only male in the company. Teaching tends to be female-dominated! We know how busy he is so we figured he may not have bothered to read the email that suggested we'd gather in said foyer. And when we started off, texting him about our whereabouts, we saw him on the parking lot. He would join us shortly!

We walked to the Italian restaurant a few blocks from the office in the drizzle. I was on bike so I hoped it would be dry when we came out! Sarah, who was on bike to and has a longer commute, hoped with me.

We sat down. What a good idea! I had only been in this restaurant once. I'm not much of a frequenter of restaurants! And if I go it's often only with one more person. Now we were six (after Dei appeared)! And we we enjoying ourselves.

We had the restaurant to ourselves (half past six is not everybody's favourite dinner time) so we could be loud and boisterous if we wanted. And there was much rejoicing! I admit there was an element of gossiping about people not present.

I had the most wine. Sarah wasn't going to go over the limit with such a commute ahead, and the rest were driving. I enjoyed the fact that it didn't matter too much! Although I think I was still legal at the end of the evening. Oh well. It was nice not to have to worry!

It was also interesting to see how little meat was consumed. Out of six, four of the pizzas were vegetarian, and one vegan. A sign of the times!

By seven-ish we were already ready to leave. You can have dinner in one and a half hour! I didn't mind. I walked back to the office (through the dry air!) to get my bike. It would take an hour to get home from there! And I had to be sharp the next morning; I was doing a field trip with my freshers. I admit just two modest glasses of wine left me less than sharp on the evening itself but the next day that was sorted. We all agreed we had a good time so who knows, we may do this more often!