On new friends and cocktails

May 27, 2019 by Ray Morgan

A few years ago, we made some friends because they used to go to my wife's pop-up cafe, and we'd always end up talking over the coffee urn until it got to the point where we realised we should probably all go for a drink rather than have tiny pieces of conversations while Jo and I were serving flapjacks to the public.

We did go for a drink and ended up becoming proper friends, which is always a nice surprise when you're a grown up. I love meeting new people, and I love that we got to know these guys from doing events. They've started doing events too, the popular and brilliant High Tide club nights (look 'em up). Our friendship has ascended from quick chats to pints in the Old Town to DJing together and, on Sunday, the most Bank Holidayish thing to do with friends: day drinking. 

We were invited round to theirs, well, actually Jo saw a cocktail they'd made on Instagram and promptly invited us round to try it. 

We went round, to their incredible house, and started on the gin at 1pm. They had other friends there too, and this is what I love about Leigh. One friend used to go to Jo's cafe so they already knew each other. Another friend, it transpires, teaches our friend's daughter and we bonded over what a great kid she is.

Then other friends came along to the garden party who knew our hosts purely from attending a High Tide night. This is the circle of event-producing life! It's SO nice to be able to meet new people when you run things, and create friendships out of that, and then drink a lot of gin together on Bank Holidays. 

I love that we live in a town where you can bump into people you know (which can be a blessing and a curse, I've blogged on this before) or make new friends and realise you actually have a ton of friends in common already. I genuinely think that the spirit of our little town fosters these kind of friendships. You can chat to someone who runs a shop or runs an event, connect on social media, get to know them, and they can become a friendly face to you. And, if you're lucky enough, you can make new friends, see a picture of a cocktail they've made on Instagram and invite yourself over, and get to try it IRL. Or maybe that was just brilliant luck.