Saturday 30 August 2008

More Hangovers

All this talk of hangovers has prompted me to scribble about hangovers from the past, and drunken escapades...I have no clue as to why that would be - but there's no explaining my neural pathways at the moment..I'm hoping that in a short while they will return to the map route they've always followed...but for now we just have to go with the flow.....

The first one I remember was after my first nightclub outing at the tender age of 15. My brothers had been instructed (on threat of death) to look after me, and expressed their love for me by plying me with Babycham...for goodness sake!!. Did you know that red cherries look exactly the same on the way back out as they do going in?  That one took two days to get over.

Then there were eighteen months of hangovers straight. Every morning, and I mean every single morning. From the age of sixteen to seventeen and a half. I would get up for work (Midland Bank ....dull dull dull...needed to drink just to quell the boredom) go to the bathroom...my mother was convinced I was pregnant as I had morning sickness every single day!!! I couldn't stay in at that time with my Mum, and Dad and Grandma - so Gill Parker and I would go out every single night. Cider (evil evil brew) was 37 pence a pint, so that's 19p for a half, and because my Dad owned a pub we knew all the lads and very rarely had to buy a drink...result - you could get legless (and a cab home) for less than a fiver...so we did...every night!!  My morning hangover cure was a cheese salad sandwich with onions and salad cream, picked up from Hagenbach's bakers on the way to the bank at 8.30am.  Remembering this now is making me shudder. I still struggle to drink cider and I certainly never have a cheese salad sandwich with onions and salad cream!!

Other drinks I cannot touch include Pernod (ugh), Vodka and Lime (How sophisticated), White Wine (white wine hangovers include a very peculiar and distressing back-of-the-eye stabbing pain), and after a nasty gash in the back of the head - which bled a lot and required stitches (a night drinking with Massai Warriors in Kenya) - Tequila!!!  What is the salt and lemon thing about with tequila slammers?, and why do you have to drink it as if it's a competition????? It's a given that once the tequila bottle comes out it will be necessary at some point to phone for an ambulance. 

Once I passed my driving test I calmed down a bit as taking the car was more important than having a drink - but I still had some moments. 

Somebody reminded me a few weeks ago about an evening over Christmas/ New Year (1983) when I was 20 years old when we went to some kind of Medieval banquet thing at Eckington Hall, and I got very drunk indeed. Apparently It was funny to see me trying to climb on the table to get up and dance!!!

While I was in the Army - there were loads and loads of drunken episodes with hangovers to match. Especially in Cyprus - the land of the 'Brandy Sour'. If you've never tried a brandy sour - pop it in your list of 'things to do before I die'...they're great. Brandy, lemon juice and lemonade (and some other ingredients which I can't remember). They're a bit like rocket fuel. One minute you're doing fine, and the next...you're up, dancing and waving your knickers in the air, then two minutes later you've collapsed in a drunken heap in the corner snogging some random guy from another regiment. Facing them the next morning in the cookhouse when you've gone for your hangover fry-up is always a bit weird. I once woke up and peeled my face off the pillow to find two squaddies asleep on the floor of my room - two of them - not one - fortunately they were both fully clothed and nothing had happened!!!! Seriously - Brandy Sours are not good.

Then there are the times - too numerous to mention - when I've got drunk with Christian. He has this thing with his bottom lip when he's had a few. It sticks out. When we worked at the Rising Sun and they had a party - it was a given that we would end up bladdered. I lived next door so there was no driving involved. At one party at a flat in Woodseats I fell down a metal fire escape - from the first floor and landed in a pile of snow at the bottom. But I got up, went back inside and had another drink. That night I was drinking WKD...that's another one to be avoided at all costs. I think that was the night that Matt fell asleep in a skip and woke the next day covered white over with frost.

Dan's dad turned up one Sunday morning to collect her when she was about 4 years old to find me with my head in the kitchen sink - he very nearly called social services !!!!

As I have aged and therefore matured (ha ha) it's quite a rare thing for me to drink nowadays - mucking out horses in the early hours can be a wee bit difficult with a queasy stomach and a throbbing headache...but I have still had the odd moment - and therefore the odd hangover...like this morning. I can't remember the number of times I've uttered the words 'never, ever again', but for now... I really mean it.

  


2 comments:

  1. Somebody reminded me a few weeks ago about an evening over Christmas/ New Year (1983) when I was 20 years old when we went to some kind of Medieval banquet thing at Eckington Hall, and I got very drunk indeed. Apparently It was funny to see me trying to climb on the table to get up and dance!!!
    Nice view it was too!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Somebody reminded me a few weeks ago about an evening over Christmas/ New Year (1983) when I was 20 years old when we went to some kind of Medieval banquet thing at Eckington Hall, and I got very drunk indeed. Apparently It was funny to see me trying to climb on the table to get up and dance!!!
    Nice view it was too!!!

    ReplyDelete

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