On a Sunday we came to worship at our altar and throw ourselves upon the mercy of our God. From all corners of the enclave we came, stumbling and broken, the grey faced and shattered remnants of humanity, seeking only an end to our pain and distress, hoping for love and mercy in the sweet embrace of Our Lard.
The night before, the enclave had rung with revelry and joy. Many parties had abounded; I, of course being at the most fabulous, most bunted, most dazzlingly fairy lit and most gin soaked party of all.
It was splendid and it was blissful and I had an awful lot of gin and I kept telling the taxi to come back later, until he said it was 2 am and he wasn't coming back again- if I didn't get in the taxi, I could walk home. As that was a trek of many miles*, I meekly put down my ginny gin gin and concurred, sad though I was to leave such a very wondrous party, when there was still so much gin to be drunk. A measure of the party's glory was that even the DC consented to dance, and at no point attempted to 'shush' me or complain that I was being 'a bit much'.
Falling in the door, to the now traditional judgemental looks and tutting from Saffy, I made some toast and lurched to bed, while the DC passed out on the sofa. At some point in what remained of the night, he must've made the long stumble through to the bedroom, because he was there the next morning, when I woke up face down in a plate of cold toast.
At first, I felt all right, once I had established I had not come down with a hideous skin condition, I was just covered in toast; and I was not blind, I had just gone to bed wearing too much mascara which had fused into a solid lump (possibly mingling with the butter) and glued my eyes shut and ruined the pillowcase.
Soon though, the pain began. A niggling pain at first, but bad enough it quickly seemed that sobering up was a bad idea. In one of those rare moments of telepathy, that makes you realise why you married someone, we squinted owlishly at each other and said as one "Pub?"
And thus we tottered, all the long way to Pubfordshire**, where we found ourselves amongst our own kind. The other sorry flotsam and jetsam washed up at the bar in the wake of all the other parties.
First to arrive had been Salacious Steve The Local Lothario, ostensibly seeking missing possessions from the night before, he had decided it would 'rude' not to stay for a pint.
Others had followed where he led, so by the time we arrived, there was quite a support group propping up the bar. Truly, misery loves company, and I did feel a tiny bit smug that despite the prodigious quantities of gin I had shifted the night before, at least I had not had to slink up to the pub in the hope of finding someone who could tell me what the fuck I did last night, and who I needed to apologise to. Not this time, anyway.
So ashen faced and whimpering was the crowd huddled in front of her, that the Angel behind the bar took pity on us all, and requisitioned bowls of healing chips for us from the kitchen. Salacious Steve, perhaps realising he had somewhat betrayed his reputation by spending half an hour having a very sweet conversation with me about his children, tried to man up by requesting a burger. Sadly, said burger did not seem to agree with him, as he took one bite and vanished to the loos for some time, before returning paler than ever and switching from beer to vodka and coke, and I felt even smugger, that not only did I not have black out shame, but I also hadn't puked. I felt almost like a proper grown up.
By now though, the cloud was lifting and we were experiencing the sort of camaraderie that only those who have come through the darkest of adversities together can feel. Other survivors of that Saturday night were starting to trickle in, but we, we hardcore, who had together come through the sweats, the shakes, the heaves, the shame, by the medium of irresponsible lunch time drinking shunned them as weak. They were not part of our (by now very) happy (not so) few. Oh no.
Someone suggested we all stay for the pub quiz. What a simply marvellous idea. We were already a team, a team forged into steel by the cruel fires of hangover, and tempered with Bloody Marys and beer, far superior to all those weaklings. We would show them how it was done!
We didn't, obviously. We were all utterly wankered, as really we had just topped ourselves up from the night before, then been so delighted at the pain easing that we kept on topping up, pretty much until we toppled over. Which meant the next day, the shame. The Shame!
* So many miles. I tried it once, I whined a lot then tried to go to sleep in a hedge.
** One whole mile.
