Time after time.

I think Friday night encapsulated everything about my friendship with KfW2. I texted her to find out when she'd like me to go down to her house, except she had a birthday party to go to that she'd forgotten about, so she'd pick me up at 8:30 PM.

Then she was late. Nearly an hour late. It's roughly half an hour's drive from my house to hers. So you're looking at nearly 10 PM by the time we'd get there. Her kids hadn't had anything to eat, so we stopped off for a McDonald's on the way down.

And then, once we had arrived, the kids needed to eat their food. We played with them for a bit and they went to bed. It was well after 11 PM. when the two of us sat down to chat with a drink. It was about 2:30 AM when we called it a night.

Ordinarily, I'd have arrived around 6:30 PM, the kids would be in bed around 9 PM and we'd have the privacy to talk after that. We wouldn't have gone to bed any earlier. 2:30 AM is probably our usual time to call it quits when we do this kind of thing.

I really enjoyed the evening with KfW2. I nearly always do, and I'm sure I've posted this sentiment before. But there was a little frustration around the timing, the forgotten birthday party, the late arrival and then still having to do the whole kids thing.

So then yesterday, I made a point of saying that I needed to be home at a certain time to receive a Tesco delivery. KfW2 had, I think, assumed that I'd be hanging around to go out and do something with her kids. I love her kids to death, but part of the reason I get a taxi home when I visit KfW2 is to avoid spending the entire day afterwards at her place. I'm an introvert. I need my own space to re-energise and sometimes, I can't wait all day for that.

Even with that, it was still amusing to see how much time disappeared with KfW2 and her kids. Getting them to do the simplest things takes five times longer than it should. And it's not like they're too young to understand. They're old enough to do the simple chores that KfW2 sets them.

As we parted, I got a great hug. I love hugs. And I promised KfW2 that I'd take her out for lunch or dinner soon, per our tradition for celebrating birthdays. Her was months ago, but we've just not seen each other this year. And who knows, maybe she'll have changed her mind about staying over at mine per my last post and we can have a proper night out?