Bryn & Poppy Went Up The Hill

I began my Lent-free drinking at lunchtime yesterday, which is far too early for me, even on a Sunday.

In the good old days - the Poppy days and the pre-rugrat days, myself and my still-alive wife had a wonderful Sunday routine. I'd cobbled together some form of stew in the slow cooker in the morning, then around eleven we'd set off for a decent three-mile hike to a welcoming pub we knew up the top of a winding hill, where he'd doubtless bump into a few people we sort of were on first name terms with for chat and (more than less often) hilarity, whilst downing three pints of lager (me) or three bottles of sweet cider (Poppy). This took us a couple of hours, then we stumbled back down the hill, with myself answering at least half-a-dozen calls from nature along the way. We'd make it back home to find the kitchen alive with the odours of my gorgeous stew which we'd gulp down whilst munching on garlic bread. The next step would be for our clothing to be ripped off (by each other) as we climbed the stairs to bed for half-an-hour or so's x-rated action, after which the alcohol, our distended bellies and brain chemicals would combine to send us both slumbering late into the afternoon.

Generally, we would wake up at six with numbed brains, wondering just what bloody day it was and then just what bloody time it was, before spending a exhausting evening in front of the TV catching up on the Star Trek (The Next Generation/Deep Space Nine/Voyager) we'd taped the previous week.

It was the best of times; it was the best of times. Then Andrew, Gabriel, Lukas and finally the Grim Reaper happened along and such activities were bottled and labelled with 'the past'.

Back to the present - I seldom feel the need for afternoon alcohol. I've never consider it the done thing to drink before noon, and it takes both arms twisted around my back to really get me to drink before six. But then of course once I'm sat firmly in the saddle of the whiskey horse and galloping towards that first hurdle...

That day's premature start to my drinking ambitions gained the attention of Andrew, who'd come into the kitchen for a sandwich and passed me one of his looks of dismay and personal disappointment, as if my lack of sobriety was meant as a insult intended purposefully for him and him alone. He said I thought you weren't drinking during Lent, to which I educated him that the forty days of Lent did not officially include Sundays, hence on Sundays if I wanted to go around literally bathing in barrels of beer whilst devouring enough dead animal flesh to sate an entire pack of hyenas then I would do so.

Andrew said I was talking rubbish - he opined that Lent began the day after Shrove Tuesday and lasts for forty days and forty nights, going on to say it's in commemoration of Jesus's time in the wilderness, and that he was say Mr Christ didn't pop out of said wilderness every seventh day to the nearest McDonalds for an Egg McMuffin just because it was a Sunday. I began my response, but then though better of it as may be Andrew had a point, but I'd definitely read somewhere that Lent does not include Sundays. However, I made a show of gulping a swollen mouthful of Stella, just to show him.

I expected further pitying looks, but instead Andrew chose a completely different track. He observed that I was taking the rejection pretty hard. I had to take a couple of steps back at this as this was not something I was expecting to hear. I also said What rejection?

Andrew said The woman you took out to dinner on Thursday. Colin told me you were quite keen but you got rejected because she thinks she lives too far away from us?

I took another swig of beer and told Andrew that Colin hadn't a clue what I he talking about. But Andrew wasn't convinced - he said it didn't matter what Colin said, everyone else in the house had notice the uplift in my spirits over the past week or so, and the way they'd all come crashing down since Thursday.

I thought for a moment, perusing what my son was saying. And perhaps more importantly, why he was even interested, having shown previously no interest whatsoever in my love-life. Not that he's ever had much of an option to of late.

So I admitted yeah, I was a little disappointed. I thought I'd gotten on really well with Sarah, but she seemed to find it very easy to curtail any fledgling buds of romance between us. Andrew said but she had a point - Southampton is quite a distance. Perhaps she thought that the distance would be a problem, so she thought it best not to allow things to develop any further. The closer you are to someone, the more painful it becomes when and if it ends.

Andrew's voice sort of trailed off at that point, and I think he may have thought I'd gauge a double meaning in those last words. As my relationship to his mother definitely ended in the most abrupt way possible and yes, I was hurt. Not as hurt as I could have been if Poppy and I had been closer at the time of her death, but it was painful nonetheless.

So I told Andrew I didn't think the distance would have been a problem; and it would have been nice if Sarah had at least experimented to see if the distance would have become a problem. But then - I continued - that's woman for you; they find it hard to make up their own minds, but they excel at making up everyone else's mind for them.

Andrew sort of half-laughed then said well, that's at least one problem I won't have to contend with. Then he left the room.

I finished off my beer. But I didn't have another one.