The bitter end

Thanks Peter for the nagging. I probably should be blogging everyday! Less copy more often, better.

Thursday was a watershed. Out for dinner with friends at a nice restaurant in Bruntsfield. Luckily they are an entertaining, easy-going, social bunch, and M wasn’t feeling that well so she too stayed on the Appletiser and fizzy water. I was surprised at the lack of difference in the evening than if I’d been drinking. Although the lamb shank would have been brilliant with a glass of red. Yet after dinner, pudding and an espresso, I started to feel a bit jaded, as if the evening would be better drawn to a close. But as it was after 11pm on a school night, that was probably because it was better drawn to a close.

Otherwise, the husband usually has to coax me away. Or, if I’m out without him, I stay out too late. I didn’t once have the nick-name ‘bitter end’ for nothing.

...

Yet I have to make sure I don't forget about this booze fast. When I became a vegetarian in my teens (I am no longer veggie, clearly), I used to have dreams where someone had slipped meat into my food. I'd be eating, in my dream, and realise what I was eating was meat and feel terribly, terribly guilty.
This didn't happen on Saturday, but my husband and I went out for a walk. A clear, chill day at the start of March in Ediburgh is a good time to go up on Blackford and the Braid hills - some rather good views up there. Part of our route included a smashing pub - a former stables next to the Morton Hall. It's in a lovely cobbled courtyard that catches the afternoon sun. On the way there, I had the thought 'I'll have a pint'. It took me a good ten minutes before I realised 'wait a second, no I won't'. So with any luck, I'll be able to remember that I'm not drinking for the next five weeks before I put a glass to my lips out of sheer habit.

And thanks to the lovely R, from Devon, who suggests that people should more often suggest going out not drinking. Good idea. A cup of tea, R? And H, a solictor in Manchester who warns that she found after a period of absintence the much looked-forward to drink is a bittersweet event, as you know it's bad for you. If so, her estimate that a glass of red solves this problem sounds about right to me!

Slainte!