Phew.

KfW2 arrived at my house earlier than expected. Well, to be honest, I wasn't expecting her to show up at mine at all, but she did. So by my reckoning, that made her about two hours early. That's unheard of with KfW2. She's, at best, on time. At worst, she can be hours late, though the only time I can remember her being overly late for me was her own birthday night out. That was about 45 minutes.

I cracked open the posh gin and the posh mixers that I'd been saving for a special occasion, rustled up some dinner and we spent a pleasant few hours sipping drinks and munching away. I ordered a cab and we made our way to the prearranged bar to meet S, GM, FC, Mrs FC and a friend of GM's - AH. They had beaten us there by a matter of minutes, but the bar was rammed. It was the good weather, so any bar with a decent outside area was going to be busy. Once FP arrived, we made the executive decision to go to a different bar.

And it was a good night. In fact, it was a great night. Barring KfW2 going home earlier than expected (she was really quite drunk, plus her and her husband had managed one of the most convoluted arrangements ever), it was everything that I had expected. To be honest, when this particular crowd of people get together, it's always a great night out. It was part of the reason why I insisted that KfW2 came out instead of waiting for another time (see this post).

I'm sure KfW2 and FP were surprised when AH managed to drag me up to dance and I didn't put up a lot of resistance. I was more than tipsy at this stage.

It was the first time that KfW2 and FP had met AH and she seemed to get favourable comments from both. I really like her - she's super easy to talk to, but she doesn't come out with GM as much as any of us would like.

GM and I spoke about it the next day. GM invites her out because she works long hours and is becoming more and more reclusive when she used to be very social. She seems to get along with us brilliantly, even if she's extremely picky about which bars we go to. GM also reckoned that she simply need to let her hair down and chill out... have an evening where she could switch off and enjoy herself. Funnily enough, that was part of the reason I wanted KfW2 out. I think she's burned out as well - lots going on at work, plus hectic personal life (with not a lot of help from family).

And I know that KfW2 had a really good time. In fact, everyone had a good time. And that made me happy.