It’s that time of the year…

… When we can start wearing knitwear, wellies replace flip flops, and the heating kicks back into life!

It is also when normally, booze plays a huge part in my day to day life. I would switch to red wine for the winter (yes, really…. How f*cking nobby does that sound?!), we would make as much sloe gin as possible (the best way we have found to do it is to just put the sloes and gin in together, then add sugar syrup at the end, as you don’t know how sweet the sloes will be), rum would be added to hot chocolate as a treat, and it’s also my birthday.

I normally manage to drag my birthday celebrations out for at least a fortnight, with the exception being ‘big’ birthdays, which last a month! So, with the big four-oh still two years away, my birthday fortnight is in full swing. Ordinarily this would mean copious amounts of booze. But this year it’s a little different.

The girls treated me to afternoon tea last weekend which was amazing. My superstar friend even checked with the venue to see if they did any non-alcoholic fizzy. They didn’t, so they said we could take our own. I had a fabulous afternoon.

It also meant that bex’s taxi’s was able to ferry everyone home. It also meant that I woke up fresh as a daisy on Monday!

Since then there have been numerous meals out, where I would normally have used the excuse of it being my birthday to have a glass of something lovely. Yesterday was a case in point; Guy had said last week that he would take me out for lunch on Monday, so to book the afternoon off work. He didn’t tell me where we were going, he just said we were going for a pub lunch. When we pulled up at the hand and flowers http://www.thehandandflowers.co.uk/ I was absolutely stunned! I have wanted to go there for ages. If it had been last year, I would have reached straight for the wine list, but not this year. Did it make the experience amy less special? God no! It was amazing!

I have surprised myself with my little experiment, and my relationship with alcohol will never be the same again. Will I be drinking alcohol this time next year? I honestly don’t know, but I certainly now know I can have a bloody good time without it! Cheers!