Day 4 - Monday 24th April 2017

A Sober Sunday Lunch

One of the things I pride myself on is making a good Sunday lunch.  Rain or shine, whatever the time of year, I knock out a Sunday lunch to die for with all the trimmings.  Of course, that usually includes a good bottle (or two) of wine, white or red depending on what we are eating.  That also included a couple whilst cooking, as in Keith Floyd's own words 'it would be rude not to'!

So Sunday lunch without the wine was always going to be a challenge. Roast chicken without a good Sauvignon Blanc would have seemed like a travesty whilst I was drinking.  We always eat our 'lunch' around 6pm so at wine o'clock, instead of reaching for a glass, I took the dog for a walk again and took my mind off it by focusing on everything around me and seeing all the things I wouldn't normally notice, like the bluebells flowering in the undergrowth which looked so pretty and the wood pigeons building their nests.

I wondered whether my husband would notice the lack of wine at dinner but he didn't mention it and neither did the children comment on its absence.  I opened a bottle of sparkling water and dare I say it, I enjoyed my dinner without the wine.  I then decided to really go for it and I had a San Migel 0.0 percent beer.  I'm not a big beer drinker but I thought I would give this a go and wow, it's really rather drinkable and as it contains no alcohol whatsoever, I wasn't tempted to have more than one.

So having had a sober free weekend, I felt quite smug as I snuggled into bed with my book.  Then it hit me.  Why does the heroine/hero of most stories have a drink to relax?  As soon as I started to read I was confronted with the image of how the female lead character got home and relaxed with a drink.  I start salivating and feel desperate to join her.  "It will pass" I tell myself, but I struggle, even when I close the book and try to go to sleep.

In the end, I get up and have a glass of water.  It seems to do the trick and I stop salivating.  I have noticed that I do struggle to get to sleep though, unlike when I have wine.  Eventually, I drift off but instead of having a great night's sleep, I wake up twice wanting to go for a wee.  Note to self - try not to drink a huge glass of water at bedtime!  There are some positives though, I did not wake up with a headache this morning - hurrah!

Big hugs,

Sxxxx