Monday 26 January 2009

A grand night out

On Sunday I did a practice run in the daylight to find the venue for tonight's celebrations. It was only because I had to stop at the traffic lights that I found it as I was stopped right by the door.



Tonight I left home only a few minutes later than I had intended (I had to read all 7 of the emails from The Man). When I tried to turn out of our road I was confronted by a disturbing sight, a drunken young man stood in the road. The cars in all directions stopped, lights shining on this swaying statue for a few seconds that feel more like minutes. He raises his hand then staggers across the road in my direction. He walks in front of my car towards my passenger door, for a heart stopping moment I fear that he is going to try to open my door, I consider pressing the button that locks the doors, but instead I lurch my car forward and drive away as quickly as I can.



By the time I arrive at my mum's place to drag her out for the evening I have calmed down. It doesn't take long to arrive at our destination but after driving up and down several side roads without finding a place to park. I find myself at the traffic lights again so mother gets out whilst I continue my search for a space. Now I am on my own it doesn't matter if i have further to walk. But I found a space outside a pizza parlour not too far from the Bistro which was lucky. So off I go clip clopping along the uneven pavement. Pushing open the green door expecting to find the group of excited bloggers and a bemused mother, I am suprised to see just a few groups of people chatting quietly, no sign of the hosts or more worryingly my mother!



At the far end of the room I notice a girl in black heading down a short flight of stairs with a sign pointing the way to the wine bar. Quickly I make my way down the stairs. Is this some kind of joke, am I perhaps the guest at a suprise party, it is like The Marie Celeste down here in the room scattered with tables and chairs but no people. Even the girl in black has vanished. I did what I assume most people would do and returned to the bar above to ask if I was at the right place. It is the right place and I am shown the way back downstairs through the door at the end to the stairs leading to the conservatory outside.



Here I find a room buzzing with excitement. Mother waves to me from the far end of the room. Making my way towards her I met a very excited and lovely DJ Kirkby. Eat your hearts out people, I was priviledged to have met the reclusive DJ and even though she had warned us all that she is not tactile and doesn't like to be touched. DJ hugged me!.

DJ is as lovely as I knew she would be with a gorgeous smile. Chopper is just as I remember from those windswept days of another life except he now has his goatee. For two shy people both did a grand job of reading for us. DJ's talk about Autism was very interesting and not in a text book kind of way but real.

I also got to meet the lovely Casdoc who wrote the Shrek Rap which was performed for us by the talented Daren Callow. If you don't know what the Shrek Rap is you need to visit either DJ or Casdoc' blogs or even both. Casdoc and DJ have sons who are Autistic. Tonight's event apart from launching the books that DJ and Chopper have just had published, was to raise money for Portsmouth Autism Support Network.

Anyway I now have my signed copy of Chopper's book and my mum has a signed copy of DJ's book, we will swap once we have read them. Oh and I nearly forgot to mention that I also met Troy who has recently begun to read my blog, I know Trixie wil be jealous.

But then it was back to reality, wandering around a shop in my finery looking for the ingredients that are needed for tomorrow's food tech lesson. On arriving home I discovered the bathroom floor was flooded and the toilet blocked. Armed with an 18" rubber gauntlet it took me just a few seconds to dislodge the offending blockage before mopping up the floor with old towels.

Writing up tonight's events was interrupted by a trip across town at 12.20am yeee gods the temperature had dropped in the hour or so since I had got home. What was I doing going out at that time you are thinking. I had booked DC's car for its MOT early Tuesday, his car needed to be dropped off so I was giving him a lift home. BTW he has had a letter offering him 'An unconditional place' on the University course he had applied for.

12 comments:

Casdok said...

So lovely to meet you. It was quite a night wasnt it?!

Excellent news on the university place! x

MarmiteToasty said...

I go past Rosie's Bistro at least twice a week :).... if I had know you had all been there I would of popped on down..... sounds like a great night.....

x

Mel said...

Awwwwwwww....how wonderful for all of you to get the opportunity to cross paths, physically.

AND you got a hug!
AND signed books!

But was the coffee any good.....that's the real question.....

;-)

Daren said...

Great to meet you too, looking forward to catching up on your Blog as soon as time allows!

All the best,

Daren
xx

Elaine Denning said...

You are SO lucky and I'm SO envious! I'm glad you had a good time. x

Fat Controller said...

Sounds like a lot of fun. I'd love to be able to meet other bloggers like that.

Congratulations to DC on his offer. They must really want him!

DJ Kirkby said...

Congrats to DC what great news. It was so lovely to see you last night. I am sorry I told you a hundred times how beautiful you are but, well, you are! People can find out more about 'Shrek Rap' on Daren Callow's blog too, 'music all around the world'. There is a link in the sidebar of my Chez Aspie blog and I see he left a comment on this post anyway.

Trixie said...

Ahhh...shouldn't Troy be jealous that you've met me numerous times and he hasn't?

I'm just jealous that you got to go and I couldn't make it. I was thinking of you all at the time. Just a bit too far for me to travel on a school night (plus my car is playing up as well, after forking out a fortune on it on Friday!)

Well done on the uni place for your son!

Anonymous said...

Congrats to DC. I am sure he'll make you real proud.

Fire Byrd said...

Sounds a great night.... I wished I'd been there.
Well done to clever son.
Keep up the good work with 'the man'
hugs
xx

Troy said...

The pleasure was all mine LiR.

Regarding dressing up (your last post). The black lace top was over the top but the red velvet skirt with split was over the bottom. I think you therefore got them placed just right.

nitebyrd said...

I'm so happy to hear that the book launch party was a rousing success! Of course, I'm jealous you got to meet DJ,Chopper,Daren,Casdok and more!

DJ's book is incredible! I now need Chopper's.

Sorry about your leak and running out in the wee morning hours but I'm still really happy you went to the launch and reported back for us!