Going Out Out
We went “out out” last night. We took part in a charity fund-raiser quiz in town – held by the local rotary club. If you're never heard of such a thing before, rotary clubs are run by local people who work together to solve community issues, provide aid, and promote goodwill. They also tend to be skewed heavily towards retired people – perhaps because they have time to devote to it.
Anyway.
We arrived at the venue ready to abide by the somewhat strict COVID guidelines in the invitation, only to discover that the hall was absolutely packed to the rafters with people who were pretty much ignoring any of the advice or guidelines. Oh well. We are fully vaccinated and did lateral flow tests before leaving the house – so we were not too worried. Seeing how many old people were crammed into the hall I began to wonder about their safety in each other's company though.
We won the quiz. By quite some distance. An embarrassing distance, if I'm honest – especially as we drank prosecco throughout.
One guy in his late 50s across the room was apparently furious at being beaten. He made a complete arse of himself as the quiz started by standing up and shouting at everybody to “SHUT UP!”. We struggled to contain ourselves. Our singing of “We are the Champions” at the end was mostly aimed at him.
After not going “out out” for the better part of two years, the effects of an entire bottle of prosecco each came back to haunt us this morning. I still got up, still had a shower, and still got talked into going into town with my youngest daughter – but I won't pretend I felt great. Distinctly second hand would be a bit more accurate. I think my body might be a bit annoyed with me.
We won though. And that's what matters – or at least, it mattered for about a minute while we sang “we are the champions”. After the quiz we wandered how through the late night air and looked forward to meeting up over Christmas, and the New Year together.
The world is slowly returning to normal. I'm not sure my liver is quite ready for it yet though.