Ken gets married next May and I am delighted to be her Matron of Honour.
So on Saturday, with my recently ordered dress in hand, I met at Hen Do HQ, (Ken's Mum's flat), with the other bridesmaids, who are Barbie and Ken's sister Tracy Turnip, (Barbie's cousin is also a bridesmaid but couldn't make it).
The dress was tried on and declared a success! We will need a panel at the back to accommodate Morecambe and Wise but that's nothing new. When I see people on TV wanting breast enlargements I want to scream, "Come a try and week with my puppies. Then tell me you'll pay thousands of pounds for chronic back ache and clothes that never fit properly"!
Anyway Ken and her Mum were dispatched "up the town" and like the three witches of Macbeth we plotted and schemed over our cauldron of evil intent!
The Cava flowed and so did the ideas. In the end they're not all that evil, but they are very, very funny. Three days and nights of debauched partying at Bognor Regis Butlins next February will provide some amazing blogs I can assure you. If they have free WIFI in any of the Burger bars there then I'll blog live from the event!
Hubby and Ken had persuaded me to stay over so I could have a few drinks and enjoy the night out planned after the plotting had finished.
I'm so glad I did. Not only did I get to watch a bit of Strictly instead of In the Night Garden while we munched pizza and got ready together in that "Let me do your make up. Can I borrow your eyeliner? Do I wear this top or the new one?" way that girls do, which I really miss, but I also got to experience Felixstowe on a Saturday night!
We started off at a very sedate bar and I re-hydrated on a couple of lime and sodas after I was informed by Ken's Mum that we'd polished off 8 bottles of Cava between us that afternoon (and Ken was an hour and half behind)!
Then we moved on to watch a band at a pub further down the sea front.
The pub was hot and sweaty.
The band were loud and sweaty.
The beer was warm and sweaty.
I must be getting old because I like a drink to experience the pleasure of that drink. So for example a G&T should come in a tumbler with ice and lemon. Not tepid and in a finger print stained half pint glass! This was the kind of place where the experience is to get it down your neck with as little fuss possible, the sole aim being getting so drunk you stop noticing how much your shoes are sticking to the carpet!
That pub is what it is though and I was having a great time. The band were good, doping covers of Snow Patrol, White Stripes and Kings of Leon and similar stuff so musically I was happy.
A fight broke out between a couple of women and their blokes waded in to join them. Ken was concerned I was ok as I hate stuff like that but I was trying to have a trunk and see who started it!
The night moved on and we were having a dance as the band were cranking it up when I spotted a women in a very short red dress with white spots all over it. Weird! I looked up. There was another. And another. And another. They had small black ears. One had even blacked her nose over.
Nine Minnie Mouses (or should that be Minnie Mice), on a hen do, had come in the pub and were dancing to the band!
Well no that's not strictly true. Two were properly dancing. One was bopping about like she needed a wee. Three were smiling in a bemused way, not unlike Dougal from Father Ted, and had no idea what to do or possibly why they were there. The bride to be, who I assume won't be seeing 60 again and really, really shouldn't have been dressed as Minnie Mouse, was looking a bit tired and emotional (not necessarily through drink but more likely through a need for her bed and a cup of cocoa) and the last two hadn't really entered into the spirit of things at all. They hadn't dressed up, apart from a half hearted attempt of a red top with white spots on. No ears, no dress and certainly no extra mouse nose adornments! They stood at the back, supped their drinks, didn't dance, rolled their eyes and had faces like smacked arses!
It was at this point I got the giggles.
I mean real belly laughs. I couldn't look at Barbie or Mr Barbie (who'd joined us for the band) because I'd laugh more and if the mice on the mouse organ had spotted me I feared another fight would kick off. I'd forgotten to pack a wedge of cheddar and some traps in my handbag so I didn't fancy taking on nine random, slightly pissed, rodents.
I'm so pleased the band didn't ask for requests because it would've taken all my strength to not shout out "Three Blind Mice" or "A Mouse Lived in a Windmill"!
Mind you by this point nothing would've surprised me! The pub already sported a woman in jeans and a black basque, another woman doing a constant box step wearing ripped tights, a PE skirt and a trilby hat and a massive guy in Union Jack boots and a kilt which, because it wasn't tartan and was just plain black, looked like a skirt!
The sights you see when you haven't got your gun!