Sunday June 10 - Summer Cravings

My name's Will and I'm a social alcoholic. It's been five months, nine days and 21 hours since my last drink.

Summer is here - and I'm wasting it on sobriety. Pissing away the scorching days and long sultry nights in a stream of blackcurrant squash.

It is an aberration. I feel as though God himself is saying: "You've worked hard all week, have a hot weekend on me - now go out and get twatted, you little scamps, before I change my mind" And what do I do? Throw it back in His face by drinking Britvic 55.

Even Wednesday night was bad enough. I finished work at 6.30pm and by 6.40pm was standing on the harbour in Conwy, outside the Liverpool Arms, with fresh sea air in my lungs, the sun on my back and a pint glass in my hand. The perfect post-work drink. Or it would have been, had the glass contained lager. Or Guinness. Or even cider. Frankly, I'd have settled for Babycham. Anything other than bleeding squash.


Friday was even worse. My first week at work had been enjoyable but tough, and as I drove home I was wracked by a craving for curry. This happened somewhere near Rhyl and by the time I reached Liverpool I practically sprinted down Allerton Road to Millon, which is my favourite curry house because it reminds me of the ones I went to as a kid in Brum. Ie, untouched by modernity. Now, curry needs beer at the best of times. But in a heatwave beer should be a legal requirement, particularly as the Millon's idea of air-conditoning was simply to close the curtains.

That's right. While every other Allerton Road reveller pulled on their summer outfits (who likes short shorts? 20-year-old Scouse birds like short shorts) sipped cold beers on pavement terraces, Gem and I ate curry in what felt like a very dark sauna. I thought I was doing OK until I had to start stealing napkins from other tables (all empty, surprisingly) to mop the sweat from my head. I'd like to say "my brow" but, yes, it was my whole head that needed mopping.

That kind of heat-generation requires lager, but I did stick to water and tough it out.

Fittingly, another person having their brow mopped around the same time was Tam, whose name you may recognise as a fellow tee-totaller. She wasn't having a curry-in-a-sauna, but she was squeezing out a 9lb 7oz baby boy, which is even worse, apparently.

I'm trying to think of it as gaining a baby, rather than losing a non-drinking partner.

It was quite a traumatic birth, although both mother and baby Alexander are fine. It therefore fell upon us to take dad Jimmy out to wet the baby's head.

We went to the Willow Bank, a pub which the more literally-minded visitor might expect to overlook a Willow Bank, as depicted on the sign. They would be disappointed. But then, you can hardly call a pub 'The busy traffic lights opposite Asda', can you?

We sat in the 'beer garden' (car park) out front, where conversation was punctuated only every couple of seconds by police sirens, honking horns, screaming kids and an old bag lady who made repeated requests to see Gregg's sexy hairy chest". Despite all this, it was a special night for our friendship group, and I truly felt that I was missing out as I watched everyone get mildly toasted. Missing the odd piss-up has not bothered me so far, but this was the first baby born to a close friend. It was a one-off and cannot, by definition, be repeated.

Unless, of course, I just cut Tam and Jim out of my life from now on and pretend it never happened, which seems a bit harsh.

The final hurdle came today, when Gem and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. Last year we feasted on salmon and pink champagne outside the Palm House in Sefton Park. This year, we went to Hilbre Island with a ham and cheese sarnie and a multipack of McCoy crisps from Morrisons. Who says romance is dead?

I'm not sure I can do a long hot summer without booze. Anyone know how to do a rain dance?