Well! Even I can party, after a fashion.

Thank you so much Wendy and your friends for making life lovely!

I can’t stop grinning. Stuck in my seat, knowing I won’t dance, the music throb throbbing so loud so loud, everyone talking so loud. I can hear so much and nothing at the same time. When Wendy pauses from her shouting and cavorting she leans towards me, asking if I am alright. Of course I am alright, can’t she see my manic grin. I lean to her and speaking to her hair again and again say that I am fine but I am not sure she hears me. Later she tells me I am returning to the time when I used to sound like a dolphin talking by clicks, so truncated are my words becoming again. That makes me grin too.

It is Angie’s fiftieth and we are gathered in the Abbotsford hotel to party. When we first arrived we had to push through crowds of party people all dressed up, all made up, all stressed up and light with the chance of enjoyment. We could see the rooms set aside for someone’s seventieth and another persons something else but our room was round the back. As Paula, Wendy and me approached it we could hear and feel the music pulsing from behind the doors of the Leven suit.

‘Oh dear!’ I thought. Loud music, talking and dancing and me do not mesh in any way at all

We were the first inside an empty venue with music blaring, lights streaming and glowing and beaming. Balloons and Happy Birthday Posters, photos of the last few decades. Kara and Jack, Angie’s children making the final touches to ensure a perfect evening. I walked, slightly aimlessly in almost circles until Martin and Becca arrived. The bar was still shut. On top of the earliness of our arrival Paula and Wendy were summoned to another room in the building where the other girls were, to do what? To do a something which was very necessary and which I didn’t understand.

This was the scene of my partial undoing. Martyn is Carries partner, Becca is her daughter. I had forgotten their names and had never met Becca before and I doubt I had spoken to Kara or Jack even though I had been in their presence a few times over the years.

I rely on Wendy for situations like this! I was too tongue tied to speak to the children , after all why would teenagers want to speak to an inarticulate sixty two year old schizophrenic and had no idea what to say to Martyn. First of all I could hardly hear my thoughts let alone speak them and secondly he is tall and fit and funny and has a job with birds of prey and has done so many things that sound frankly terrifying that whatever vestiges of charm remained with me, deserted me.

I was able to accept a drink and then had the trauma of deciding where to sit, going to their table; would that be presumptuous or would going to another table all of which were empty at the time, could that be insulting? In the end I sat a few chairs away at the same table, gulped my beer and failed to hear what Martyn was saying.

By and by Jules and Fiona arrived and then family members and then more teenagers and finally Wendy, Paula and Carrie. Wendy squeezed in besides me already hyped up and giggling, she informed me that communication was important but agreed that the only way to do so was by shouting and that even then you wouldn’t be heard. I have been in a very small number of situations like this before so it wasn’t alien but I hadn’t spent a youth partying like Wendy and her friends had.

One of the parents of the fifty year old girls came to scatter little stars and 50 years old symbols on the table. This delighted Wendy, who immediately began flicking them with her finger at Carrie and Becca. Twenty minutes later the battle was still raging mixed in with delighted laughter from all of them, with Becca claiming that Wendy was even crazier than her mum. Martyn pretended to affronted when struck by one of the flicked pieces and then threatened to flick his empty can at Wendy who pretended to be frightened. A flirty exited table where people were sticking stars to their faces and glasses and I was grinning and saying nothing at all but grinning none the less, feeling delighted to be sitting next to Wendy, leg pressed to leg, watching her sparkle, watching her shine, overjoyed to be in this wonderful persons life.

Angie arrived and had to be hugged in turn by everyone, well maybe everyone except me, though I did wave.

And then the kitty appeared on the table, more drinks appeared, those lights streaked across the floor and the ceiling, the music seemed to be even louder and people were dancing.

Wendy in her group of friends, Angie’s work friends in their group. Angie in every group, the older people in a variety of groups and the teenagers! Wow those teenagers, almost adults, brimming with energy, cool in the coolest of ways as in not cool and therefore even cooler than I could ever have been. Gangly thin bouncy. They cavorted leapt, mock fought each other waved their arms and were utterly wonderful. I can imagine our Louie being like those girls one day when she is a bit older and a bit more confident. Not so sure I can see James dancing, but maybe he would in some sort of similar crazy way.

The evening carried on, dancing and laughing and nattering or rather shouting. Occasionally I would go outside for some cool and some peace, initially as the sun was beginning to set and later in the dark of the night. Very very occasionally I said a few words to someone but all along my body felt joyful. At some odd points my feet tapped out of rhythm. Wendy announced she had peaked too soon and was going to stop drinking alcohol but I couldn’t see much difference. She was still wittering, still jittering, still laughing but with the faintest hint of sweat to her face.

I never saw the buffet arrive but was very good at helping eat it and when I went up for thirds someone took one of the platters to the table which pleased and dismayed me at the same time. Lovely to eat all the food, though I worried about my sleep later.

The cake arrived, was lit and was cut to applause and photos and the renewal of the music. Occasionally I realised that people were lined up and doing particular gestures and moves to certain songs which made me realise how far, far, from the edge of the world I have always been, never having known a dance move in my entire life. There were few of us men present and most of us rarely danced but always there were women on the dance floor.

At one point when I had gone on to coke, Carrie bought about ten tequila rose shots for the table. I can get drinking tequila straight but these looked a bit weird, almost medicine. Maybe in a way they are.

Lorraine arrived to a huge cheer and what everyone says is her favourite song and which apparently they know isn’t really her favoursite song but it needs played anyway so it was. I didn’t eat any of the cake as I was pretending to myself it would be healthier not to, even though I had had about eight cheese and onion and mayonnaise sandwiches already.

At one point I waved my hands vaguely in the air and wendy said I was dancing, at other points wendy grabbed my hands and danced them for herself. For a short bizarre but interesting time I talked about cows and sheep and the diseases they get with one of the men.

Slowly the people began to go, first of all the teenagers, then some of the older people then odds and ends of people until we were a smaller group still drinking still wittering, finally or almost finally Martyn started wandering the room taking down the decorations and then it was time for Loch Lomond by Runrig – when Fiona became insistent (as I was the only one still seated) that I got up to join everyone for this last dance. That was greeted by a kind cheer. As usual I got the twirly bit wrong but it was good.

Being sightly predictable I felt slightly smug when it turned out or taxi would take half an hour to get to us and then less smug when it was explained to me that you can no longer book times for taxis.

We sat in comfy chairs as the DJ packed up then moved to the main building where we hoped we wouldn’t get chucked out as we waited. The taxi took much longer and then when it arrived, we were half way down the road when the taxi driver, who was the hotel managers brother, realised he had picked up the wrong people. In the end it didn’t matter as our taxi picked up the unpicked up people instead of us.

I liked our journey home, a soft smooth luxurious jjounrey where Wendy and Paula talked with the driver about the night clubs of Dumbarton and Helensburgh when the social scene at night was far livelier.

I slept well, despite all the late night food. I woke up early but got up late!