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So. It’s Saturday afternoon, I have had approx. 4 hours sleep (3.5 the night before and a 30min nanna nap), I’m seriously dehydrated and I know that there’s a huge family gathering about to occur at which will be more of Mike’s family than I’m ever likely to see in the one place again! Oh, and a Bluegrass band - BLUEGRASS!!!! I reluctantly pull my stockings and hot pants on and wonder should I really bother with the knee-high boots or just go in my slippers??

Luckily I come to my senses and go the actual footwear… but I can’t be bothered with eyemakeup…

So I scrape myself together and inbetween yawns tell Mike’s cousin and his partner that I’ll come good - I always do… I promise I won’t pike! PROMISE!

We go to this amazing house in Sandy Bay on a hill with a view I would happily kill for and we’re pretty much the first to arrive. The prawns are still thawing and the gas heater is just starting to fire up.

I get started on a light beer. Mistake number one. A few hours into the party and all the over 50’s are getting quite merry and the under 50’s are spastic and I’m still sober and yawning and thinking about calling a cab to go home to bed…. I feel I’m letting the team down. They were expecting fireworks and I’ve delivered a bic lighter that’s just run out of butane.

So, I bite the bullet and dive headlong into a Cascade Draught - and then another, and another… and before I know it I’m dancing to the bluegrass band, following Uncle Robert’s wife around coz she seems to know where all the secret bottles of champagne are and begging Stef’s partner (soon to be wifey!!!) Sharnee to come and find a kareoke bar with me!!!

Mike had to drag me away from the place to go home (much to the dismay of a large group of leering men old enough to be my father!!) kicking and screaming! “NOOOOOO!! I’m not ready to go home! I’ll just stay here - you guys go! I’ll be FIIIIIIIIIINE!!!!”

Sure. I would have been fine. Until the key-swapping started….

So we all came home and the night ended in us all applying rockstar eyemakeup to each other, Stef playing guitar like a pro and me playing banjo like the banjo-pickin whore I am and then going to bed!

Awesome fun!

BUT - I really outta make some kind of public apology to my liver… although if it wasn’t so good at processing the toxins…. well….

Mike went to Melbourne so he could go on a bar tour with his cousin and his cousin’s partner who had recently arrived from teaching in Japan. I was invited but due to my status as mother and the distinct lack of child minding services that operate overnight and on a weekend I had to stay home.

I thought hmmmmm…. home alone…. how lovely! Some time to myself! I can sit on the couch and watch crappy tv and eat Tim Tams for tea… and that’s pretty much what I did the first night of husband-less-ness! I put Felix to bed as soon as I could, stuck some oven-bake chips in to heat up and made instant gravy from a sachet. That’s right. From a sachet.

It was GREAT!

And then I started watching the Footy Show, got tired and lay down on the couch and went to sleep!

And when I woke up there was a cat on me and a plate of smeared gravy next to my head - like I said - it was GREAT!!!

So the next night I decided I’d had enough of being alone and sensible and called a Girl’s Night In.

Started quite sensibly too… until everyone went home except Jules and then her partner Pedro turned up!

Let’s just say the night ended with us drinking everything I had in the house, smoking rollies and attempting to straighten Pedro’s hair - which let me tell you - is the curliest hair I have ever seen!!

I got up the next morning when Felix started chirping having had roughly 3.5 hours sleep and was immediatley greeted by an entire house of empty bottles and pizza boxes and a comb completely clogged with a large amount of Pedro’s curly locks in the bathroom sink… gah!

So I cleaned up while my head throbbed and I wondered if I could drive to the airport to pick Mike, Stef and Sharnee up without being pulled over by the cops…

I made it - although we did need to stop at Mcdonald’s on the way home so I could get some grease to ease the hangover. Now this all would be just fine if i didn’t have the mother of all family events to attend that night - Uncle Robert’s 60th - and also a reputaion to uphold… I began to wonder if I was really going to be able to keep my crown as the Family Drunkard - or would I just go to sleep in my light beer?

To Be Continued……….

I just took Felix to Melbourne. On my own. Yes, I am a glutton for punishment! (those of you who know me will know I’m also a beacon for all kinds of trouble and chaos too!)

It was great tho. He loved it! On the plane as it was taking off most of the kiddies were wailing - not my kid tho… my little man was yelling “FASTER! FASTER!” at the top of his lungs!!!!

So we hung out with my bro out in the suburbs and then I got gloriously pissed with him and his partner back in my hotel room. Holy crap. We had a bottle of bubbles between the two of us and then I drank 12 middies.

Yes. That’s right - I said 12. Admittadly they were only middies but still - TWELVE! Gah! So I got to bed about 2ish and Felix dutifully woke me at around 6:30 I ignored him reasonably successfully for another hour but then I had to get up and face the inevitable hangover…

and not only that but my bro had left his car at my hotel (he was in NO condition to drive!) so I had to drive his car in the outer suburbs of Melbourne… now I only learnt to drive a couple of years ago and I’ve only been driving properly for about the last 3 months so you can see what a big thing that was for me! I had to drive on the Princes Hwy for God’s sake! And just quietly, I’m fairly confident that I was still a bit pissed I’m not proud of that and I don’t advocate drink driving, but you know, it’s not like I had a small child improperly restrained in a booster seat instead of an actual car seat in the back… no wait…. wow… I really am a bad mother!

Oh well - at least Felix will have had a fun upbringing… I hope he looks back and thinks that his mummy was always laughing (and possibly driving on the wrong side of the road) and happy and having fun…

On Friday night I told Amanda to come to our office for a glass of bubbles to celebrate her new job… but I didn’t tell her i’d invited a few other people to help her celebrate as well :-X

It was a sweet night… just a total impromptu gathering of random people in our office with kids running wild and booze running out.

The pub next door (yep bit of a recurring theme there i know!) even offered us a tab!!! We drank everything we had stashed in the fridge and then went to get more… and more… and then some fish and chips….

it was so much fun but the only thing was that we had our offspring with us… not a huge hassle coz we have a port-a-cot there so we stuck him in there when he got tired BUT, we still had to get him home when all the frivolity dwindled down to a dull headache…hmmmmm…

So we staggered home at about 11:30 pm thru the city - pissed as nits - with our kid on my back in one of those pack-things, staggering, with open stubbies in our hands, child in daddy’s jumper because naturally we hadn’t brought any warm clothes for him 

We chatted to drunks along the way, slurred to each other, and secretly hoped the police didn’t take our child off us!!!

Aaaahhh, it’s so wrong isn’t it?! But he had a great time - and so did we. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to piss it up with your mates and have the kids entertaining themselves - I LOVE MY LIFE!!!!

Oh yeah - just a little addendum: the cleanup was awful. Rancidly-off fish and chips and champagne festering in the heat or our office - yum! Let’s just say that the plates were STUCK to the table!!!

Still, it was totally worth it!

xxx

Our mates came over today to watch some cricket, drink some beer and just generally catch up. We’ve been friends for years - kind of a chance meeting through my old place of work - but we’ve been firm friends ever since. We all love a drink, love to have a good time and love each other!

So we lazed about on the couches watching the Indian innings and saw a couple of wickets fall, we downed a few stubbies and the kids played happily with one another in the background.

Then the boys buggered off to the pub and us laydees stayed behind to do our motherly duties. It was just great tho, watching the kids interact. Felix is just a little bit younger than his friend Mia, but he’s just getting to the age where he can start playing and actually comprehending simple instructions (yay!). So the pair of them tore around the place and giggled and screeched together and I felt happy and proud. It’s taken nearly two years, but i finally feel I know what it’s all about now.

When you see your child getting two biscuits out of the bowl and placing them both in his little friend’s hand… well, you know why you bred in the first place.

A gorgeous day - gorgoeous people and plenty of beer.

Perfection!

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

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

I have a sore throat like I haven’t had since I was nine.

When I still had tonsils. That were infected for roughly 8 months of the year.

There are things on the back of my throat that can only be described as “pustules” … and they look angry. Oh so angry.

So I’ve been duly miserable. Trying to take panodol every 4 hours not every 2 and living on throat lozenges. I haven’t been much fun. And the night before last - I couldn’t even face a beer.

Oh I know. The shame!!! But I just didn’t want to waste the beer on myself… if that makes sense. I felt a bit better last night so i thought I’d have a bevvy and see how I went… and you know what I found out?

I wasn’t that sick. I was a little bit sick and a big bit sober. When I woke up in the morning after tee-totalling I realised that:

a. mornings are far more shit than I could ever have imagined

and

b. this is how most people wake up every morning:

alert… hydrated… cheery…

OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So here concludes this evening’s post. When you’re feeling poorly - too poorly to drink - just stop and think, please, that it’s not so much getting you drunk, but more preventing you from being sober.

And if you’re feeling crap, the last thing you want to do is feel crap and feel crap sober…

I read a news story the other day that women should only consume 2 standard drinks a day for ten years or something before they got some sort of brain damage. Short term memory loss, inability to concentrate, that kind of thing. Nothing major like forgetting how to walk or who you are or suddenly starting to talk with a British accent or anything.

So I was thinking, well, I drink about 3 to 4 stubbies a night on average - some nights less, some nights a fair bit more. Keeping in mind that a stubbie is approx. 1.4 standard drinks… I guess it all evens out in the end. This behavior started around the time I started to earn enough money to be able afford to drink on a regular basis. So about 5 years ago.

That leaves me a damn good 5 years worth of brain-cell suicide!

Woo-Hoo!

Someone get me another beer to celebrate!!

For the men-folk out there reading this - you can rest easy because according to the research you guys can safely consume about 6 standard drinks a night for ten years without causing damage. However the article mentioned that a large percentage of men believed it was ok to consume 20 standard drinks a day for 10 years before incurring any cerebral compromise.

You wish hahahaha!!!!

(So do I!)

Well, now I’ve only got 4 years, 364 days and 23hrs left to continue the abuse on my long suffering brain.

I’ve got to go and make the most of it!

Cheers…

So we have just returned from our pub (see previous post re. Living Next Door to a Pub etc.) having had 3 drinks while our son miraculously sat patiently in his stroller. It’s a beautiful thing because it’s a rare thing. We went for one quick drink - I had a banana, a drink and a Hairy Mclary book in my bag so I thought we could be good for at least ten minutes but I think we made 30 without the wee man turning himself inside out and squealing at a frequency that could shatter glass and deafen small dogs. Bless him.

This all came about because while we were buying stationary, my husband decided he fancied a pint.

Not a drink. A pint.

Ok. I understand more beer is usually better but I truly fail to see the attraction of a pint and here’s why:

1. It’s basically two pots right? Well wouldn’t you rather have one icy cold drink followed by another icy cold drink as opposed to one enormous drink that starts off being cold and ends up being the temperature of your hand?

2. It’s massive. It’s the Toyota Landcruiser of beer. Maybe if you’re 6ft 7 and built like the proverbial brick shithouse, well maybe it suits you. But if you’re 5ft 6, female, weigh less than a heavily packed day-pack and have hands the size of a toddler - it’s just too big. I can’t be arsed even lifting the thing.

3. See either of the above - they’re both good points.

So that’s how I feel about pints. They might be cheaper, they might even make you feel special while you’re ordering one, but in the long run you might as well order a jug and drink out of that.

But don’t tell my husband - he probably will…