Home Alone

The memsahib recklessly left me unsupervised for the weekend whilst she went off to Oxford with some friends.

I trust I do not have to explain why the result has been a fearsome hangover coupled with the usual "lost time" experience. I awoke fully clad (and in my own clothes, which is nice) in a chair in the living room in the small hours of the morning. The television was blathering to itself, a sure sign I was severely inebriated. It appeared that I had returned home somewhat the worse for drink. So of course I had then drunk more. As ever on these occasions, I was surprised and slightly disappointed to wake at all. The delight that I experienced in realising (a) I had not vomited over myself (again) and (b)I was not lying in a heap on the floor, was immediately offset by the extreme discomfort my slumped posture had generated. I tottered upstairs and flung myself on the bed. Undressing seemed otiose in the circumstances. This is why I normally drink alcohol under tightly regulated, rigorously controlled and UN-supervised conditions.

I awoke later, full to the brim with hate, darkness, and self loathing. This is entirely normal and is one of the reasons why, when I was a carefree young batchelor, I spent most of the years 1980-1990 - shall we say in a constantly self-medicated state? Now, I face the world alone. And frankly, it is not an appealing sight.

It is a depressed and chastened Springheel that picks at his laptop keyboard this evening. It's not that one feels ashamed. Swinish drunkenness is a fine British tradition that I am proud to uphold. It is more of a Proustian issue.

I wish I could remember all the fun I must have had...