Works 'Do'

Because I work from home I don't get to 'enjoy' the annual works do. I never really liked them and indeed it was one of things my husband and I bonded over when me met ( re-merchandising the Zappa section of a large record store in London after a re-fit, as we were both on the 'management team' we got to do all the fab stuff like open the import boxes).
Neither of us liked hanging out with the staff, they were really nice but they all wanted to be DJ's and starlets or were even more geeky than us which was quite a feat and it just bought home the transient, desperate nature of living in London and trying to build a relationship, everyone scrabbling around trying to kiss each other but still look 'vital' wondering if working in a record shop until pensionable age was feasible or even cool on any level and if you'd ever move out of a house share or get to shop at Waitrose instead of Budgen.
SoOooo I found them quite depressing and so did me fella and we would slope off to one of the illegal drinking dens we knew in Soho and watch the prossie tarts and flashy geezers coming and going sharing stories about when my brother chased me round the block with some dog poo on a stick and when his Mum pulled him off a wall where she'd put him to tie his shoelace and broke his arm. Oh and the time his dad ran over him in a tile warehouse and broke his femur and the time I was sent to America for the summer holidays to stay with my parents friends as it was free and the only time I would ever go abroad as a child even if it was without my family and I should be grateful and was made to listen to Mormons who visited and when I was flicking the tea towel at the back of the large living room fan and it got sucked in and made a huge grinding noise and the Morman lady nearly dropped a bollock with shock. We talked a lot and fell in love and the rest is history.
I guess our lack of excitement at the Christmas works do bought us together.
These days I do it differently......these days I treat myself to a slap up lunch at the local pub, I get my Mum to pick the boys up so I can really drag it out, and I have a proper good feed, a few gins and a mammoth go on the quizzer machine. Bloody great, then I sit and read for a bit, have a few more gins and then walk home just as people are putting their lights on but before they have shut the curtains, so I can see into their living rooms and critique their decor. A solitary marvellous do indeed.