The Come-Down

The shittiest thing about having a fantastic weekend is when it ends. I had a fantastic weekend. It's ended. And now I have an exceptionally shitty Monday.

Anne and Jess turned up at something like 5.30 on Saturday evening. Within minutes drinks were offered around and, surprise surprise, Anne wanted coffee. At this point it became important that Anne opened her birthday presents, as the first present she opened was a jar of Whittard's Almond Amaretto Coffee. Which obviously she then sampled. And while she wasn't entirely surprised to find that I had acquired a copy of The Well Of Lost Plots for her, she was highly appreciative of the gift.

The meal out at Frankie and Benny's was reasonably uneventful from what I remember - I do remember there being arguments over who was going to ridicule themselves by ordering a jug of Woo Woo, and the fact that several groups came and went from the table next to us in the time it took us to have our meal, and, obviously, that there was much talk about who knew and who didn't. I also took a couple of photos of Anne and Jess, because that was one of the things I'd said I wanted to do for Anne for her birthday - what with all the secrecy and not many people knowing, there hasn't really been any opportunity for them to get pictures of themselves together, etc. Dunk, I know what you're thinking. Forget it, mate.

There was vague talk of sitting in the garden when we got back, but that didn't quite happen. Mostly because it was colder than it looked. Instead, I got to show off the XBox. DOA:XBV didn't meet with quite as much ridicule as I expected, but I was ready for quite a lot, knowing what Anne is like when she's on form. Which is not to say she wasn't on form, but, you know.

The Alison and I demonstrated DOA3. For once I managed to hold my own against Alison (2 games of Ayane (me) vs. Christie, 2 games of Kasumi vs. Kasumi), and then Alison offered Anne a go. At this point I totally got my ass whupped. It wasn't just a can of whup-ass. It wasn't even just a keg of whup-ass. It was an entire tanker full of draught whup-ass. There are plenty of opportunities to make dirty comments about Anne being good with her hands, but her thumb is just unbelievably fast. I then handed the controller to Jess, who put in a good effort (including employing a tactic I described to her that one of my brother's previous girlfriends once used on him while playing a similar game) but, again, got her ass whupped.

Anne was no less competitive when it came to Burnout 2, but Jess won that one. Given the slightly vicious edge to the atmosphere at this point, I thought it was probably safest to turn the XBox off.

And then we chatted fairly late. Alison was sneaky with the camera at this point. And I've no idea what time we got to bed. Well, I'm fairly sure it was before 1am, so I had a vague idea, but further than that I can't comment on.

I didn't know how I was going to react to Anne and Jess visiting. Although they got together during their last visit they weren't really a couple at any point during that weekend, so it was really the first time I'd seen them as a couple. I was concerned that possibly I'd make them feel uncomfortable, or that I'd feel uncomfortable, or worse still that I'd end up staring and leering at the reality of a girl-girl couple.

None of this happened. It was all very relaxed, and it all seemed so natural that it was almost like there was nothing unusual to stare at, and no one seemed uncomfortable about the situation at all. The strangest thing of the lot was seeing Anne coupley, happy, and contented. They're a very sweet couple (Anne? Sweet? I know!) and pretty much all of the photos of them from the weekend captured that. Alison and I are also a very sweet couple, obviously, but there are enough photos of us already.

The next morning the lovely couple got up late. Apparently the bed in the top room (the fold-out sofa-bed) is the comfiest bed Anne has ever encountered and it's far too easy to sleep on it in. Yeah, whatever mate ;-) After a late breakfast, the threat of XBox rematches, and me grabbing every spare moment to read a certain book, we headed off to the Burton Dasset Hills to go kite-flying.

Yes, this is why last night's entry contained a picture of Jess holding a Sully kite.

We had a picnic first, where we all fell in love with Alison's "Rocky Road" cakes, and I proved that it was impossible for a bloke to belch quietly.

When it came to the actual kite-flying, Anne and Jess took off (you see what I did there?) with Alison's Sully Kite, and Alison and I attempted to get my stunt kite off the ground. This all went swimmingly (flyingly?) for about two minutes, and then the wind dropped. I think it was about half an hour before the wind started picking up again properly, but we were not to be defeated. All of us kept trying to get it up (ho ho). And then, once the wind got going...

• I managed to hit Alison with the stunt kite without crashing the kite.
• Jess and I managed to get the two kites entangled.
• Anne made as many kite-related double entendres as humanly possible.
• Alison managed to catch the stunt kite as the wind dropped.
• A little kid tried to get involved with flying the stunt kite, but his mother/guardian berated him in a foreign language.

There was talk of going to a pub. We'd even decided which pub. Then Alison came up with what was possibly one of the best ideas of the weekend - we could just sit in the garden, in the sun, and drink.

I think we were out there for two or three hours, and we were all totally chilled out.

We also ate outside, and apparently it's my fault the chips were burnt.

Eventually of course the weekend had to end, and for various different reasons (or perhaps all different variations of the same reason) Anne and Jess did not want to leave nor did I want them to leave. Not entirely sure what Alison's feelings were but I do know she thought it was a cracking weekend too.

And then I sat down and read Order of the Phoenix until I finished it. As predicted in last night's entry, I started The Well Of Lost Plots last night too.

And of the weekend as a whole, I can safely say that while none of us knew who Noel was, we do all now know that the 5 most commonly used consonants are T, S, R, L and N.