Family Time

We've just had a lovely, sunny, three day weekend here in the UK.

In the old days, this would have been a great excuse to drink like a fish.

I'd, obviously, have overdone it on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings, and I'd have found excuses to start drinking by midday, continuing on for much of the afternoon.

By now I'd be feeling like death, and would have slunk into a pit of despair.

But these days my Bank Holiday weekends are all about family.

It struck me recently that I've spent much of the last decade trying to avoid my children. Isn't that terrible?

I would look for day time activities at weekends where they could play happily somewhere, while I would sit and watch from the side lines with some adult friends and lots of booze.

In the evenings, I would try to feed them relatively early, then there would then be a frantic rush, with lots of kicking and screaming, to get the children into bed 'on time' so that Mr SM and I could settle down for a boozy, 'adult' dinner a deux.

Over a bank holiday weekend I'd often arrange a 'family lunch.'

These generally involved inviting round another 'bon viveur' family. We'd eat lunch with the children down one end of the table and grown ups down the other, then pack them off to watch a movie/destroy the house, while we got really stuck in to the vino.

They'd leave at around 5pm (and probably stop drinking at that point), I'd keep on going until I eventually passed out on the sofa at around 10pm.

Despite the 'family lunch' description, I'd have spent barely any time at all actually talking to any of the children.

This weekend was different.

I booked tickets for us all to go to a wonderful Roald Dahl exhibition on South Bank. We then had lunch by the river, and walked along the Thames, pointing out St Paul's Cathedral and Big Ben, and ogling all the street performers.

We stopped, along with over a hundred other onlookers, to watch an amazing Australian escapologist doing a Houdini style show. He picked two young men out of the crowd to help tie him up. Then he looked around for a female assistant and....picked me!

The smalls were thrilled that Mummy got to be a star in a show and we all had a ball. (I lied when he asked me my name, so every time he addressed me as 'Sheila' the children cracked up).

Our evenings are different now too. Instead of wrestling wide awake children into bed too early, we've relaxed all the rules for non school nights. We all eat together, and we find programmes on TV that we can all enjoy.

The current favourite is Britain's Got Talent.

(Runners up are The Durrells and The Wives of Henry VIII - which counts as revision, and the children love the gore and sex references. You need to watch this sober, as you get thrown questions like "what does he mean 'Anne Boleyn had relations with her own brother'?")

So, Saturday night, I invited a friend and her daughter round, we ordered in a takeaway curry and we all watched Britain's Got Talent, piled onto cushions in the playroom, with much cheering and booing.

None of the smalls got to bed before 10pm, there was no 'adult time', just one big mess of family.

But that's the way I like it now. And, needless to say, so do the kids.

Hugs to you all,

SM x

P.S. Thank you all so much for your messages yesterday. You, and just the act of writing down my fears, helped enormously. I am 90% sure I've just strained my arm (probably as a result of an over-enthusiastic dog on a lead), and I'm not going to die (yet). I know that these cancer fears will fade in time, just like the wine witch does when you quit the booze....

Overdoing it

Day 85.

It's a bank holiday weekend, and the beginning of half term, here in the UK. In an effort to prove to myself that life still goes on without alcohol - I appear to have overdone it. Rookie error.

We had two families round for a barbeque lunch on Saturday. In typical UK Bank Holiday fashion as soon as we fired up the Barbie it began to rain. We moved inside and started eating at around 2.30pm.

They didn't leave until 7.30pm.

In the old days this would have been a result.  A valid excuse for a whole afternoon of non stop drinking! Not now.

We must have finished eating by 3.30pm. Unlike back then (when, by this stage, I'd have given up any pretentions of 'proper hosting') I remembered to offer everyone coffee and chocolates. I'd cleared all the plates. Loaded the dishwasher. And they all just sat there drinking.

Don't get me wrong. It was great fun. The conversation was hilarious, and at several points I laughed until I cried. But - to steal a word from a comment left a while back by mythreesons - I felt itchy.

I really wanted to be able to turn up the dimmer switch, slump down in my chair and just go with the flow. I was way to upright and aware to be able to spend four hours at a table without eating or drinking.

By 5pm I wanted to stand on my chair and shout "RIGHT! You've eaten my food. You've drunk my booze. Now just EFF OFF out of my house." But I love them all, and they were having fun, and I couldn't.

By the time they did go home I had a crashing headache and realised that I'd been literally gritting my teeth for several hours. I was proud of myself, but utterly exhausted.

Then, yesterday, I woke up with a feeling of dread as the realisation dawned that I had to do more socialising. Again, a lovely invitation. Dinner at the house of some very good friends. But all I wanted to do was to hole up in my safe little house with my safe little family and watch Mad Men with a cup of hot chocolate.

I did the dinner. It was fine. But I found myself analysing everything I was saying as I was saying it. Was that funny? Why am I telling this anecdote? Is this gossip really appropriate?

In the old days I just said stuff without thinking. It probably shocked people, or upset them from time to time, but it was easy. It was natural.

Funnily enough, I now remember being this analytical about conversation way back in my teens and early twenties. Probably the last time I did dinner parties relatively sober. Apart from when I was pregnant. And that was easy. You could just sit back in your chair, quietly and serenely stroking your precious bump, then leave early without any qualms.

As we drove home (drove home! Now there's a bonus!) I asked The Husband "am I more boring when I'm not drinking?"

"How can I possibly answer that?" he says, exasperated. "If I say no you'll worry that you spent years boring everyone. If I say yes you'll worry that you're boring everyone now. You weren't boring then. You're not boring now."

He's right. I'm never going to know the truth.

I've realised that it's a bit like learning to walk again after an accident. You just have to take baby steps. And this long (so long!) weekend, I've been trying to run a bloody marathon!

What are we doing today? Going to old friends in the country for lunch. More socialising. More drinking. More itching.

My advice to any of you in the early days? Protect yourself. Take it easy. Baby steps.

Love SM x

For more on sober socialising read: The Drunkard Detector, Tartan and Tiaras, Blast from the Past