I am very sorry.
I am truly sorry.
I should have written to you last night and I had an abject failure.
This was because, you might not exactly be astonished to learn, because I was completely and shamefully intoxicated.
I was not only intoxicated, I have also been taking a course of antibiotics which make me mildly nauseated and unsteady even when I am only washing up or sweeping the kitchen. Coupled with about a gallon of Prosecco and some gin, I was not very well by the end of the evening. Certainly not well enough to compose any captivating and entertaining prose, and probably not well enough to compose any dull and tedious prose, although I did not bother trying anyway. I collapsed into the shower, and then collapsed into bed.
I had been rendered sufficiently unsteady by the antibiotics to forget all of my normal pre-drink preparations, like ensuring a large jug of water on hand with which to mitigate the worst excesses, and when eventually I remembered I was already too intoxicated to care.
The thing was that Number Two Daughter was at home, and we had invited Elspeth to come and join us for a Ladies’ Evening at home. Mark is not a lady and so went out to work, fortunately, because this enabled him to stay sufficiently sober to drive Elspeth home after wards.
I do not remember much about the evening. We laughed a great deal and burst into tears several times, and I am trying hard not to think about it. It was jolly good fun, reminiscent of our mis-spent youth, although I am very glad indeed that I have grown up and am in no danger of repeating it at any time soon.
Elspeth had to work this morning, for which I had heartfelt sympathy. I would not have been able to drive, never mind work at the end of it.
Instead I sat in bed with a cup of coffee and an uncomfortable sensation of unwell dizziness, and discovered to my massive relief that Mark had tidied up the living room, washed the pots, and generally left the house looking as immaculately spotless as if it had not been occupied by three irresponsible drunks all evening.
It was one of those moments when I was profoundly grateful that I was married.
I did not do very much today. We loaded the trailer with some massive slabs of wood that the builders have donated, and I mean massive, we are going to stand the camper van on them when we take it off its chassis, and took them across to the shed. Then Mark fixed the leaking hose on my taxi and I went back to bed, where I slept very soundly indeed until about an hour ago.
We are going out this evening. Mrs. Number Two Daughter is arriving on the train at any time now, and we are going to meet them at the Gilpin, which regular readers will remember is the most divinely upmarket, wonderful restaurant on the other side of the fell. I have only been there once before, when a hugely generous friend from school and his lovely wife took me out for an evening of hedonistic culinary bliss last year. Hence I know exactly how wonderful it is, and am looking forward to it very much indeed.
We are being picked up in a taxi by Z, so we could even drink if we wanted to, which I suspect I don’t.
You will have to hear about it tomorrow. I am not going to be very literary when I get home tonight either.
These pages are becoming a catalogue of roguery.
Normal service will be resumed soon, probably.
