I vaguely remember writing the previous blog post (where I bitched about my entire weekend being eaten up by a variety of commitments). The reason I use the word “vaguely” is because between then and now, a considerable amount of alcohol got consumed - well… considerable for me. The days of me being able to drink entire bottles of wine, and lined up pints of beer are a dim and distant memory from the time before marriage, children, and responsibility…
Saturday was mostly filled with a visit to our local brewery for the first day of their “Open Weekend” (after the usual round of chores, trips into town, child wrangling and so on). It looked like it might tip down with rain during the morning, and it did for a time while we stood drinking our free beer - but we didn’t let that stop us.
It has to be said - our local brewery is fantastic. It was started by a couple of the brewers from the brewery that used to dominate the center of town - some wonderful buildings and cobbled streets that have now been re-developed into “luxury apartments” that nobody living in the town can afford. Most of them are empty. The present brewery exists on a farm on the outskirts of town, and almost in spite of their rejection of technology (their website isembarrassinglybad), the loyalty of their customers is astounding. I’m guessing the various open nights, and weekend events have nothing to do with that.
After drinking several pints of perhaps the weakest (but the only chilled) beer available - others were drinking far sterner stuff - I wandered off home and miraculously felt fine. I got in, and sat there grinning while everybody else was accused of having drunk too much.
Sunday saw us head out to Oxfordshire for a pub lunch to celebrate my father-in-law’s birthday. Having just started to feel ok again after the previous day, we started again…
For some reason everybody else raised an eyebrow at my choice of lunch - curry, rice, popadoms, nan bread… and a basket of chips. I was hungry!. Ok, so I didn’t really need the sponge pudding with custard after, but it was offered to me, and I wasn’t about to complain. I couldn’t move afterwards.
I don’t actually remember falling asleep at my in-laws house, but I do remember waking up with a start in an empty living room as W prodded me with a cup of tea.
If this weekend proved anything, it proved that nobody should take any notice of me bellyaching about having to go do stuff. Once I get out of the house, I generally go with the flow and have a great time. I always remark about “how I should do this kind of thing more often”…
Perhaps I shoulddo this kind of thing more often - except perhaps without quite so much beer…