and the beat goes on.....

Apparently, 39 is the new 40. A Star in my inbox preceedes my not so quiet night at home. The little Bob-the-Builders in my head have now deemed it appropriate to recede to a faint, but constant reminder, in the background of my cranium, and my piteous threats of, "I don't ever to see any chocolate again!!" has undergone a suitable amendment. "Well, not till next Thursday" (although the aroma of anything chocolate still makes me faintly nauseous).

Liz has organised work drinks to celebrate this ludicrously momentous day of my life, and even my enthusiastic impression of Rahul down at the pub (ahem, a half glass of wine, a pint of water all over her bag {the resultant flooding had us moving to higher ground} and another glass of wine....) which, does precious little to deter the ongoing celebrations. My metabolism is just happy to be surrounded by all things sugar free. 4 bottles of wine later, I'm enjoying a rather incoherent explanation of 'fabulocity' and being declared utterly so, by Helen who swears she absolutely loves me. Really :). I leave the 26 year olds to celebrate my 39.

A text message asking if I've recovered. I blush back, 'Erm, I'm not done yet.....'. Dinner; Galvin at Windows (no, not your local window cleaning voyeur). Taks and I discover the reason for the throngs in front of the elevator. An undoubtedly overpaid consulting firm has deemed it cool for the Hilton to install a lift calling programmer (alright, so I should know what this is called.. I don't). The theory; you punch in the desired floor, and the console directs you to your nearest lift. You step in and voila. Mission accomplished. All very well, as long as the computer doesn't keep changing its mind. 4 futile minutes, another query, and hain!, we're directed to a different lift. This goes on for about 12 minutes, and we strike up conversation with a charming gentleman who never made the lift an decided to go for a smoke instead. Finally doors open, and we make a dash for it, uncaring of what floor it's headed for. The car is full of camaraderie as we applaud the carrying of a book, exchange hostage stories, deliberate over the fate of those that might have been when the lifts persistently open to empty corridors and wonder what happens if the lift decides to head back to the lobby without opening its doors on the 28th floor.....

Thankfully, it does, and like starved wildebeest, we exit, tormented by the thought of being sent back to the lobby. Shrouded by Gotham like mists, the petit bourgeoisie and I indulge in a mélange of flavours and textures, that is the Credit Crunch dinner special, emboldened by some excellent choices by the sommelier, and spend the rest of the evening trashing the appalling dressed women in our line of sight, before making tentative plans to do some research for Taks' essay on shoes (in Nigeria, they assume a significance unknown in Europe, and well, I'd seen rather a fetching pair of dominatrix type heels at Zara that I didn't have the stamina to visit on my own). Thank God it's Friday...