Thank y'all

Last night we had our engagement party in a wine bar in Tin Hau. I was almost late for it; I'd arrived in a complete flap after a panicked day at work, where a simple request to update a presentation had inexorably snowballed into an enormous wild goose chase involving dumbfoundedly dull things to do with the difference between British and American date formats. I will say no more of that.

Our friends Paul and Candy had done us proud; instead of just writing the sign outside the door, they'd bedecked the bar with heartshaped balloons and piles of heartshaped sequins on every available surface. When I woke up this morning, I discovered sequins adhering to my body, leaving behind little purple patches when I pulled them off.

Part of me worried about the wisdom of booking a bar from 7pm until 2am. Certainly, it gave everyone an opportunity to come by and say hello, whether that was early or late, but it also meant we were on our feet for seven hours.

The questionable wisdom of this was dwarfed by the uninspired stupidity of necking a glass of red wine at some point in the evening; wine is not meant to be poured down the hatch like cheap ale, and for the next half hour I worried that my body would rebel against me.

But no such disaster took place, so instead I got to bask in the warm company of all our friends, repeat the story of our engagement (now with added sound effects) and eat cupcakes.

Oh, and drink lots of wine, to the point that at 2am I acquiesced with my fiancee's demand for McDonalds, and ate some fries. Not my best decision ever.

So a cordial thank you to everyone who attended. If you couldn't make it (perhaps you were in a different country) please have seven hours of drinking to commemorate it.