The Drink and I

First of all let me be clear: I don’t have a problem. I can take it or leave it and just at this moment in time I am choosing to leave it. For now. A week or so ago I had a bug which rendered me sans energy and appetite. After three days I got better and realised that for the first time for decades I had gone longer than 24 hours without a glass of wine. It seemed like an interesting experiment to continue for as long as it felt comfortable and see what effect it had both on my spirits and on my weight. I have difficulty keeping under 9 stone and a few pounds above that and it feels uncomfortable owing to small bones and a short torso. Eight and a half would be grand.

I didn’t want to miss the evening ritual – a relaxed drink before supper – so substituted Diet coke. (Flat D.C. is great, incidentally for Delhi Belly.)

As a child – at Sunday school I was a member of the Band of Hope – much to my Granddad’s amusement – him being a regular at The Rose and Crown, My first memory of sampling the demon drink was the end of our last term at grammar school. In the bowels of the cloakrooms we had discovered an unlocked cupboard which housed meters and had a faint gassy smell. Four of us girls would crouch in there at lunch time in the dark and discuss what we were going to do with our lives, boys and tell each other creepy stories; Edgar Allen Poe was a great favourite. Cider was our tipple - thank goodness we hadn’t got into smoking or I fear we’d have been blown sky high.

In the fifties with babies and little spare money we entertained friends with coffee and sandwiches. It was in the sixties the rot set in; we didn’t do drugs but it was the era of the dinner party. There would be quite stiff drinks as aperitifs, copious amounts of wine with the meal – each course of which would be laced with alcohol and followed by liqueurs and anything we fancied. Then we would drive home. Breathalysers were unheard of. Fortunately the roads were much quieter then.

In the seventies we became more health conscious and many of us stopped smoking and cut down on unhealthy foods and drink. Alcohol became more of a treat and I remember fondly visits to my friend’s farmhouse in the Dordogne. The mornings would be spent hard at work making the house liveable and then at lunchtime we would be treated to champagne cocktails and oysters.

In the eighties after my reunion with MTL there were some long evenings over a bottle of whisky as we caught up with 30 years of living and eventually I realised that spirits were not for me – I couldn’t take the headaches. So wine only was my tipple from then on. The amount would vary according to events and the company but then – after three separate leg fractures I took on board that alcohol inhibits the absorption of calcium and cut down further. So a glass a day is now the norm.

I’m not sure if I shall have a drink before Christmas – I’m not making any promises. It would be good to be more of an epicure and drink only excellent wine, modestly on special occasions. I asked MTL if he had noticed any difference since I cut out the alk. He said:

“You don’t stagger and fall over quite so much.”

That’s a joke!