Day 18: Lost weekend

Saturday 17 October

Some days are nothing days. It is a shame when such days are Saturdays, because then they feel more wasteful. A vague collection of ailments (sawdust throat, broken neck, slightly unsettled innards, persistant sniff) all combined to leave me sitting on the sofa in a dull daze from 10am until about 10pm. Rioja and Jim were keen to go out and do something cultural, to enhance their month off the booze. I am unsure where exactly they are in this so-called “month off”. Since I reported on their gloom-filled attempt at joining me in Day 10, I have been in a recipt of a barrage of confusing texts:

 

“I have failed but Jim is going strong. I am weak”

“I went to the Albert and said 'rioja' instead of 'diet coke'. So weak”

“We have both failed. We are weak. PS - have dragged smug Jim down with me. Ha ha”

They seem to be averaging two days on two days off. I think all those false starts must be far more painful than ploughing through an entire 30 days in one go. Imagine thinking you had to give up booze for a month three times in one week! Had they both genuinely been in need of cultural stimulation as a drinking displacement activity, I might have been more tempted to drag my festering self from the flat, but, as it was, I merely slumped on the sofa and lined my non-alcoholic beers up in alphabetical order. Then I drank the Super Bock Stout.

Units dodged: Zero. I don’t really feel like drinking when I am infested by illness.

Non-Alcoholic beer of the day: Super Bock Stout. Oh delightful fluid! I foolishly started drinking from the bottle but this forced such a flume of foam from the neck that I was forced to hastily decant. Another Portugeuse one (the Portugeuse seem pretty hot on their booze-free boozes), it was dark and fruity and a little bit like strong tea and a little bit like a Christmas pudding and by far the least discernably non-alcoholic tasting beer I’ve had by a long shot. I would very happily go out and have a bottle of this just because it is velvety and sumptuous and delicious. I would ideally like to drink it from a curved lady glass with a stem, but it would be a good show if it were available on draft and you could order a nice creamy pint of the stuff. Anyway, fat chance all round. If anyone can tell me a pub that serves it, I’m there. And if not I’m moving to Portugal next year. You can all come too – it’s sunny there, they tell me!

The Unit Dodger