Cruising

It's not even half way through November yet but we're well into the swing of Christmas Parties for the year. I'm attending three work dos this year, one for my current branch, one with my old branch and a generic bank social club charity ball.
On Saturday I went to the first one of the season - a river cruise for my current branch. I managed to convince Christian to attend one of them and I think in the end he was glad he came. Whereas at my old branch everyone is much older than us, the people I work with now are much closer to us in age and so we have more in common.
We had to fight our way down to Barrack St Jetty as there was a festival on in Northbridge, a Justin Timberlake concert plus a Muse concert all happening at once. It's a miracle we managed to find parking within a ten block radius of the jetty!
Anyway, it was a fantastic night and I managed to get lots of photos which, naturally, I'll share with you all, whether you like it or not!

This is Jess and her partner Paul. Jess and I work on the business line together although she's recently been trained up in sales and will soon be leaving the teller's line.

This is Clelie, Rachel and Elaine, the blonde brigade.

This is Laura (on the right) and her partner Leanne. Laura is the third member of the business trio and works out processing the express business deposits. Laura and I get on fabulously and had a wonderful time that night. Last Thursday I cam into work all frantic because I'd had a bad dream that when I met Leanne she didn't like me. It was awful! But Leanne was just gorgeous and apparently likes me (and Christian) lots so I was very relieved! We've already agreed that we'll all get together soon for another night out because we all get on so well.

Oh hurrah, there were Christmas Crackers at the tables and for some reason most people found it entertaining to wear them.
Our table didn't participate...

This is Kristie-Lee who works in sales, her fiancé Lee and our branch manager Di. Both Kristie and Di are such fun, you always end up laughing around them.

This is Heather, my team leader and Kay, our business manager.

Rachel is our old team leader and looks absolutely fabulous now she's left the bank. I envy her, I really do. Mid thirties and retired!!! It's just not fair!

Laura, Leanne and I wanted a Titanic photo but we were all too scared to actually climb up on the front bit (not to mention that we'd probably have been kicked off the boat for doing so) so we settled for this.

They're just the cutest couple!

A photo of Christian actually smiling! I should post the one of him looking positively grumpy but I think I'll stick with the happy ones.
Everyone commented that they love his shirt which you can't really see in this shot. It's got a manga type picture on the front and back and we discovered a lot of manga fans on board that night.

Kristie-Lee grabbed my camera later that night to make sure that Christian and I had a photo together. I tried to tell her I'd (surprisingly) already gotten several but that didn't deter her. (I should mention for those who care that this is the dress I was wearing the other night for those who wanted to know just how low cut it was!)

Christian then took several photos of Kristie-Lee and myself. K-Lee didn't like them much so kept on making Christian take photo after photo until she found one she liked.

After all of that she much preferred the photo that I took of us.

This is Grace, who I'm training at the moment. She's such a lovely lady and is so helpful. Her first day in the branch and she's answering phones, jumping onto the meet-and-greet desk. Such a trooper!

Ok, now he's starting to get annoyed with all the photos...

After a while, I went back inside and Christain stayed outside playing with my camera. I'd wanted to get some pics of the city but we were having trouble with my night mode and all the different settings. But a few of them worked out quite well.
I love this shot.

And this one.

And this is a photo I took at the beginning of the night as we were leaving the jetty. Perth has our own Hollywood sign! How cool is that! I think they only put it up for the Red Bull Air Race and I'm sure they'll take it down soon but I thought it was cool. Now, it would have been really tacky if they'd shoved it up on the hill at King's Park...

We all went out to the pub after the cruise had finished and then headed into Northbridge, hoping to catch the end of the festival. We were too late though as it had already wound up for the night and so we did the nerdiest thing - we stopped off outside of the Northbridge branch and peered in making comparisons to our own branch! Lets just say I don't think I'd like to work in Northbridge as there's no glass partition between the tellers and the customers. Talk about dodgy!

On Sunday it was our four year wedding anniversary and the day got off to an ok start. We slept in, watched a few of our shows and then headed off to soccer. After soccer it was getting rather hot (36C) so I suggested to Christian that we head off to the beach. Now, considering it was our anniversary, I assumed we'd go by ourselves. Christian however invited along Kat, Mike and Mike.
Now, to be fair, I usually invite them everywhere we go and I really enjoy spending time with each of these people, however, I didn't really want them coming along that day. Not just because it was our anniversary (although that was a large part of the reason) but mainly because Kat, Mike and Mike are the last people I want to go to the beach with.
To explain further, let's just say that I don't really like the beach much. I rarely swim and this may be influenced but the fact that every time I try to get out of the water Greenpeace come and try and coax me back in and when I refuse they pour buckets of water over me to keep me moist.
As you may have noticed, I have rather big self confidence issues. I have about enough self esteem to fill a thimble, if that. Now, Kat is one of those absolutely gorgeous people who everyone wants to be like. Her partner Mike is a health fanatic, rides everywhere, six pack, whole kit and kaboodle. Other Mike is rather athletic too and almost as skinny as Christian.

Then there's me.

I was in tears before we'd even left the house and was feeling like shit. Christian couldn't understand what was upsetting me but being both a boy and almost 20 kilos underweight, he was never going to get it.
And so we got to the beach and I sat on a towel and watched everyone frolic in their bikinis and boardshorts, hating myself more and more as the minutes dragged by.
We had a barbie afterwards and I felt even more isolated as the night went on since I can't really participate in conversations about getting high and which elicit drug you'd like to try next.
That's just not me.

And so the night finally came to and end and I got home and went straight to bed, feeling more lonely than I've ever felt in my life.
Not the best way to spend our anniversary night, that's for sure.
And the worst part about the whole thing is that it's entirely my fault.
I just can't let go and be myself. Not everyone is going to love me for who I am but I can't accept the people who do and to be happy with that and be damned to everyone who doesn't. I care way too much about what other people think of me and I let it affect my confidence levels.
I messaged Christian this morning after he'd left for work to apologise for ruining the day and he made me feel a little better when he messaged back with 'Don't worry, we'll have plenty more to get right'.

I just hope that I don't end up ruining them as well.