Running in Heels

Although they are pretty comfy, as heels go, my pink heels do have their limits. Wearing them all night long on the treacherous cobbles of St Jocks' turned out to be pretty painful, and so did standing and dancing on them for six hours straight last night. As I live in Marylebone and as I turn into a pumpkin soon after midnight, usually when I go out at night, I can either walk home or catch the tube. Last night, though, I went out in Kennington to celebrate Balham Babe's birthday, which resulted in a fairly epic journey back to NW1.

After some drinks at BB's house, we went to this pub, located in the very European-esque Cleaver Square (there were even people playing boules), before heading for Hawai'ian-style drinks and dancing. The cocktails were supposed to be particularly good although perhaps I've been spoiled by the secret speakeasies of the Lower East Side, as I didn't think they were that great (although they were only £6).

As I hadn't researched bus routes for getting home, I really wanted to get the last tube back to NoMaRo, and a quick bit of dancefloor iPhone searching suggested that if I got the last Northern Line tube at 0:24, I would get to Charing Cross in time for the last Bakerloo Line train to chez moi. Naturally, the Northern Line was late so despite sprinting across Charing Cross station in my aforementioned heels, I missed my connection. I had expected this so the sensible thing would have been to stay on the Northern Line to Warren Street and walk home from there or get one of the two buses. When I finally escaped from Charing Cross, I headed for Lower Regent Street, past Trafalgar Square and along the deserted Mall. By the time I reached the bus stop for my bus, my feet were killing and I couldn't face walking the remaining 30 minutes home. There was such a traffic jam on Regent Street though that my bus showed no signs of arrival and so I carried on walking up Regent Street.

I made it as far as Anthro when I saw the number 6 bus, which I'd also seen on Edgware Road before, so I knew would get me close to home. Because it was a night bus and we were in the West End, it was full and noisy, and because people wouldn't heed the "no standing on the upper deck or stairs" notice, the driver had to keep stopping the bus. By the time I got back home, I could hardly feel my feet any more (the pain came back this morning) and it was nearly 2:00 am.

My plan was to see The Tree of Life this afternoon but I wanted to go for the early-bird performance at the Curzon, which was a bargainous £7, and because I cunningly forgot to set my alarm, I woke up too late, so instead I'll be going to see The Princess of Montpensier, which will cost me a non-bargainous £12.50. Ah well. It was a fun night and, more importantly, BB had a good time. I guess now I know how people who don't live in Marylebone feel when they have to get back home most of the time...