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Last night I had to open a couple of Stellas in the dark… (never mind why!) and you’d think it should be easy but I assure you it isn’t! It made me think of all the times I’ve been caught without a bottle opener but still with the overwhelming desire to drink the import in front of me…

I remembered the time I was at my friend’s 30th and we had to use a dessert spoon to open our bottles… you kind of lever the spoon against the 3rd knuckle of your index finger and supposedly the top just pops of effortlessly.

Bollocks.

I tried it and although I did manage to open my beer, I damn well needed to skoll it as pain relief after I felt a divot come out of my metacarple bone! It hurt sooooooooooo much - I immediately bruised, swelled and had to pretend neither had happened just to save face infront of the boys.

Then there was the time we got stuck bottle-opener-less again and were pulling the bottles sharply down onto the table so the top just caught on the edge of the table and would hopefully fly off somewhere around the room… except my husband got too carried away and ended up smashing the top AND the neck of the bottle off. Nice one.

Oh yeah, and my cousin taught me to open a twist-top with the underside of my forearm… never mind that I could just have done it with my freaking hand and avoided the bottle top sized bruise on my wrist - I can open a bottle of beer with my skinny little forearm! Yeah! That’ll impress the men-folk!

Anyway - I got into the Stellas without too much trouble and was just thankful I was using an implement actually designed for opening bottles and not cutlery, a table or my own skeletal frame!

Cheers

Yesterday it snowed. It’s summer. And it snowed. I wanted to be mad about it - I really did… all that freaking cold air and the pointlessness of shaving one’s legs… but to be truthful I wasn’t mad…

I liked it. It was snug and warm inside and it made me think of the early darkness in winter and the smell of woodfires.   All of a sudden I WANTED it to be winter and for there to be a raging storm beating on the windows and to have footy on the tv and soup on the stove.

And stout. I wanted to be drinking stout.

Yesterday was a stout day. There’s only one thing I like better than a glass of sweet, figgy muscat by a roaring fire in winter and that’s a big dirty stout!

Bonox in a bottle. Liquid Marmite. A Meal in a Can.

It’s definitely not to everybody’s liking, in fact I know some people truly can’t stand it. But I want to plead with you - next time it’s winter and you’re reaching for the opened bottle of red - try a stout instead. You might surprise yourself…

or you might throw up a little in your mouth and tip it down the sink… but at least you’ll have given it a try!

It was warm again today - not stout weather any more.

Shaving legs weather.

Dammit.

These last two weeks have been really strange… it’s been a fortnight of catching up with old friends - and I mean OLD friends: friends I haven’t seen since school! First my dear friend Robbie came to stay. Robbie is part of my family and I love him with all my heart. When he left I cried like I haven’t cried in years. He’s gorgeous although a little timid. Which delighted Felix The Great no end as he thundered around the house causing earth tremors in neighbouring countries while Robbie looked politely uncomfortable! But for some reason the two of them got along really well - it’s like kids can pick the people who are least comfortable with children and then make them their favourite. He also ended up calling Robbie “Doff” for no apparent reason…

Then I met up with my school friend Vanessa whom I haven’t seen in 10 years. Fuck that makes me feel old! But when I saw her - she looked just the same! It was good to see her again - didn’t realise how much I missed her and her almond eyes and her inability to sit still and do one thing for any longer than 10 minutes (thanks for the indigestion Ness!)…

While I was out with her we dropped into the Quarry for a drink and I GOT ASKED FOR ID!!! I am 28 years and 9 months old! HAHAHAHA! I told the dear little bar girl that she would laugh when she saw my birthdate, she didn’t but she looked embarrassed!

Must have been mighty dark in that bar I think…

And then the real surprise happened on Sunday. We went to see The Cat Empire at Moorilla and it was a SENSATIONAL day! Absolutely gorgeous weather, great music, dear friends and MOO BREW!!! Ah such perfection…

So I was gradually getting drunk and sunstruck when someone sort of “hovered” up to me and said “Jemma? I THOUGHT it was you!” and it was my old friend Adam from school whom I haven’t seen in at least 12 or 15 years! I nearly died! It was so good to see him again and meet his lovely fiancee Coby. They’re a great couple and I drunkenly invited them back to our place to drink our beer… which they did!

What a day - I drank Moo Brew for 6 hours and Corona’s for another 6… reminisced with Adam, slurred to Coby, laughed and had a great time!

Impromptu drinking at its finest!

That’s all for today.

xxx

This morning I woke up with a car in my bed.

A yellow, toy car.

I had slept the whole night with it in the bed and I didn’t notice. It’s a new low. Next I’ll be forgetting where I live, slopping beetroot down the front of myself and drinking port and lemonade… oh it’s a slippery slope…

Toy cars aside - my husband has gone to play lawn bowls. I know. LAWN BOWLS!! He assures me it’s ‘cool’. My only thought was surely the beer is still 1972-cheap but apparently not. So why is he there? What could possibly be the attraction?!  Why would you go somewhere filled with a disproportionate amount of senior citizens to physically exert yourself (albeit it minimally) and pay full price for your drinks? There’s a place you can go to where you don’t have to lift a finger except to indicate that you would like another pot - it’s called a PUB!

I’m bitter. He’s left me with no beer. I have 3 Cascade Stouts that have been in the fridge for a year and I’m drinking them - but I’m not happy about it. I like stout in winter. In summer it’s just wrong!

I’m going to go stick that toy car under his pillow now.  I should staple it to the mattress - that’d teach him to leave me with no beer!

Hmmmfff!

Oh wow I am the worst blogger in the world! So many months so little time! I think this basically proves one thing though - I am a MUCH better drinker than I am writer!

So basically I have spent the entirety of the last 3 months drunk and have totally lost track of time. I’m sorry. Forgive me. See - you teach a toddler to fetch beer from the fridge and it works a little TOO well!

I’ve mainly been drinking my dear old Cascade Draught, occasionally a pint of the black stuff (you can’t drink a pint of Bovril!), a pint of Pale Ale, a pint of Moo Brew (thankyou Dave you are a sweetheart!) … the common factor here seems to be the overuse of the word PINT.

Now I have had an issue in the past with the pint - it’s too big, gets too warm and is too hard to hold. But I’ve found that when I’m out with people who are drinking pints that drinking a pot is silly. You can’t go in a shout. You need tweenies. And you feel like a total twat-head.

So the morals of this story are:

a) Don’t start a beer blog if you actually intend to drink beer for 12 hours out of every 24

b) You must drink out of the biggest vessel made available to you at all times

and

c) I should not be allowed to drink without a minder

(that’s more of a mental note to self thing, but maybe one of you might care to remind me of it before the inevitable truckload of trouble finds me next time I am drinking in public)

xxx