One of the San Francisco partners, relatively new to the firm, very kindly hosted a barbecue at his weekend house in Napa, north of San Francisco, for all associates and their other halves from both the San Francisco and Palo Alto offices. Two buses were arranged ("coaches" here are people who wear tracksuits), one from each office, to take us up to Napa on a Saturday afternoon.
But first came Friday, which began as a pleasant evening of eating takeaway pizza with a colleague and her family. Looking back my mistake was perhaps bringing my ipad to show her daughter some more family photos (she'd previously shown an interest) because it was a short jump from family photos to you-tube videos, and from there to loud music and drunken dancing. By the next morning we were all feeling pretty rough, and one four year old was particularly keen for me to return because I was apparently a personal friend of Taylor Swift. (I'm not, by the way, in case you were wondering, I just met her once at Justin Bieber's house.)
So by the time I arrived back at the office on Saturday to board the "fun bus", I was not at my most alert. Unfortunately, as it turned out, neither was the bus driver. She looked the part, with a mannish looking cap, but in the cut throat world of professional bus driving that is not enough.
The first problem was that loads of people decided to either skip the barbecue or drive themselves, so the coach only had six passengers. The second problem was that the San Francisco bus had been cancelled through lack of demand, so our bus was rerouted via the City Centre to collect just two additional people.
The bus was late in leaving and took three hours to get from Palo Alto to Napa, arriving at 3.30pm. The barbecue was at a house on the appropriately named "Money Street", an address which demonstrates the subtlety and modesty for which Americans are famous. Unfortunately the bus driver passed the house where the barbecue was being held and then tried to turn round in the drive of a house further down the street. After making a complete circuit of the turning circle in the front garden, she attempted to do a hard right between two concrete posts, forgetting that she was in a bus rather than a Ford Fiesta, and contrived to wedge the bus fast between the two posts. Because we were kind and the driver was on the verge of tears we resisted the urge to photograph the bus, and walked back to the party, which was lovely - good food, good company, good wine, but sadly brief, because the bus was due to depart at 6.30pm. So we had had a three hour journey there, a three hour party and now had a further three hour journey to lok forward to.
Meanwhile our driver had been shouted at by the occupants of the house whose drive she was now blocking, and thanks to a tow truck driver managed to extricate her bus from the driveway and turn it back in the right direction.
Our kind host agreed however to letting us take some of the opened but undrunk bottles of wine with us for the coach. We did not however take account of the fact that our emotional driver, keen for her day from hell to end, was heavy on both gas and brake, resulting in a less than smooth ride. Although we would have liked to sleep on the bus, we couldn't because we each had to hold these full but open bottles of wine very carefully all the way back to ensure they didn't spill.
So what did I learn this weekend?
(1) Red wine gives you a terrible hangover, but sometimes it is definitely worth it.
(2) Never take more wine than you can drink if the bottles are already open.
(3) Napa is gorgeous and well worth a visit, although better to go for more than three hours.
(4) If a German lady starts talking about her dirndl, it might sound like dildo, but is actually something completely different. If you are going to mention what you thought she said, make sure she has had plenty of wine first.
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