Baby steps, bench-pressing the plank and flabby bodies floating in a spa

Today, I made the first of my baby steps.

I finally changed the clock on my mobile phone to reflect Perth time, and not London time. So you see, I am sort of re-acclimatising. I should add a disclaimer: it's out of convenience more than anything else. My digital clock broke this morning, so of course I slept in to some ungodly hour and missed a 10.30am appointment. It happens.

I decided to get back in to the social swing of things on Friday night. My friend was having his "Farewell - I got a job in Brighton" party. It's the sequel. We celebrated the first time back in April; he went over to the UK and realised the university he was to work at still had his application sitting on their desk. One month later, he was in Perth again. Two months later, he's going back to the UK.

Okay, so I turn up to this party that is full of his friends who I have completely forgotten from the first do-dah. But you know me. I'll talk to the pot-plant if I have to. Turns out, I end up having a rather pleasant chat with a tree-lopper who keeps leaving mid-way during our conversations to go blow his nose (he has a cold, it's not me). One of the ladies screams out "CHONG CHEW!" when she sees me. I don't know her. I am about to get up and tell her where she can park her ass when she corrects herself and screams out: "CHO CHANG!"

Now that I can handle.

She clearly has difficulties remembering my name, thus keeps calling me Cho Chang. So I am Harry Potter's girlfriend for the rest of the night.

I'm playing Bar Tender at the party. And bloody hell. I'd be everyone's favourite Bar Tender ... if only I could see over the counter, and knew the difference between beer and ale. My recipe for any alcoholic mixer is: 2 parts alcohol, 1 tiny (tiny tiny) part everything else. I know they say Vodka doesn't smell, but the way I make my drinks - it smells. This is after I've had some white wine. My mathematics is all over the place.

During my semi-tipsy state, the conversation between myself and a guy called Dan turns to how much we weigh.

DAN: I'm 89kg.
CHRISTINA: I'm 47kg.
DAN: I benchpress that!

30 seconds later, I am doing my very best to be a plank. And Dan is trying to benchpress me. It doesn't really work. I'm sort of drunk. And he is completely drunk. I'm staring at the ceiling during this failed human feat, thinking: "If I fall, I'll land in the fireplace... or crack my head on the table 20 centimetres from my head. This is fun."

For part of the evening, I chat with a guy who works for a bank. And when I realise he wants to get my number, I spend the rest of the night running away from him. And instead of flatly telling him: "No thank you" at the end of the night as grown-ups do, I decide to do it with more style and panache... I pretend to be totally engaged in a deep and meaningful conversation – about curry – with a neighbour's (inebriated) partner until bank-man leaves.

Oh okay. I was lying about the style and panache bit.

When I go to say farewell to my friend Mike, he is at the point of no return. He's got that blurry-eyed look about him (probably thinking profound thoughts like "Who is the Walrus?"), and is sitting in a spa in the garage (it's 4 degrees Celcius outside) with about 11 other people. And they're all naked. And not in a "firemen's ball-sexy" way.

I have not been so scared in such a long, long, long time.

Therapy is a walk around the river on Sunday afternoon (followed by yet another all-nighter prepping for a lecture I need to present at noon on Monday - does anyone want my job?). The sun was out. The sky cleared. And it was hot.

And it's our winter.

Yes. I'd like to rub that in.