The day of Two fat ladies, or should I say 2 pairs of balancing balls to be more on point and less offensive. I apologise for the indiscretion, let’s say no more about it. Yesterday was mine and Mrs T’s wedding anniversary; 17 years married plus about 7 years shenanigans prior to that mucking about in Nightclubs, alfresco drinking on Chorlton Green, and staying up really late, pushing on through and staying up for days on end, I was younger then, we both were, that’s how time works and chips away at youth. Sitting here on my comfy chair listening to Geogaddi by Boards of Canada on CD (I need to listen all the way through as I’m blogging and only last week removed the kitchen CD player and connected it to my HI-Fi system in my record room, which is in fact only  1/3 of a room as the lounge makes up the other 2/3’s and whilst no one is in here I’m filling my boots )

So today’s ramblings are rooted in my hangover which I rudely found myself part of when I woke up. Initial feelings of amusement and the need for tea were swiftly replaced by feelings of woe, depression, paranoia, all covered with a sticky film of self loathing. What was I thinking? Last night we went to a friends house, where we sat outside in their field/garden drinking and making merry. They’d made food and bought a table outside, there were tents for other friends to sleep in, a paddling pool next to a fence which my son dived off into the pool, asking for £5 for doing it after the event, which is not how that sort of challenge works, he’s much to learn and it is with glee that I see an awful lot of myself in him, he’s a mentalist which I am secretly very proud of! So what on the face of it seemed to be panning out to be an ordinary evening in an extraordinary setting, the woodland surrounding us on 2 sides bordered by Dick Brook, 400 metres off the main road down a track to the monastery, a football pitch mowed and flattened into the field it was just perfect. Until that is my host asked me rather innocently if i’d like a snakebite. He’d been getting into them during lockdown and I couldn’t really see any problem with it, thinking it would be a nostalgic trip down memory lane to full days playing table football in the Fort in Salcombe. How wrong could I have been? On a scale of 1-10, 10 being very wrong, i’d imagine it was a 9, always bearing in mind you can never score a perfect 10 unless you’re a gymnast. On top of the snakebite, probably 3 of them, I had the majority of a pack of cigarettes and my daughter got to drive our mates car in the field. Chaos is the word, we walked back on the road late at night and stumbled into bed and I woke up to be in the situation i find myself in now. Snakebites without black is a young man’s game and I count the grey hairs in the thousands, the double chins in multiples of 2 and the need for a siesta is really top of the list of things I need to do. Star wars is on, i’ll watch that I think.