What’s your [insert beverage of choice] ritual?

As established, 5pm is cocktail hour.

Though some days we open early and cocktail hour is like... 1.30.  And lasts for about 9 hours.

Cocktails of choice are martinis. Martinis are smooth and sweet and sharp and comforting.  They bite and they kick, but they calm and they soothe. A well-mixed martini excites, even as it relaxes. They dance on your tongue, and give you that warm glow when you swallow and good grief I‘m beginning to sound like an alcoholic.

But it’s true. They are relaxing. They have a proper kick, but then they slide down so sensually and massage you from the inside and all the way down.

AND THERE ARE SO MANY VARIETIES!

Classic vodka and classic gin martinis we save for special occasions- they DESTROY your brain because they’re just so damn boozy. Delicious, but not to be trifled with. You have to want to get a bit wasted to start on those. So on an average cocktail hour we go for softer options with a bit of mixer thrown in. Cranberry martinis, appletinis, strawberry, etc, etc- you get the idea.

And my own creation which has proven amazingly popular with guests – Mango and Honey Martinis.

These are like sex in a glass. People now request them when they turn up, which I kind of like.

But the ritual? My fastest mix is cranberry... because we make them all the time, and because I always end up spending all night making cocktails whenever we have a party; I’ve become insanely fast. Just over one minute for two glasses. So here goes...

Glug of vodka (no time for shot glasses or measures) into each martini glass. 
Glug of vermouth in each.  (No time to watch closely... pour by timbre)
Two glugs of cranberry in each.
Tip the contents of both into a shaker (or a Hawthorn, though that adds precious seconds and your favourite song is *obviously* playing).
Chuck in 4 ice cubes.
Press the top on, then the cap last, otherwise it won’t seal properly.
Shake it in two hands, holding the top on, just in case, until it makes that pleasing noise and the ice is broken down a bit.
Tap the top to clear the strainer so you don’t lose any when you pop it.
Pop the cap.
Pour, splitting evenly between the two glasses.
Crack the top and pour in the foam. The foam is the best bit. Try not to get the ice in.
Drink.

And yes, the shaking IS important. It’s totally obvious when you’ve stirred. It doesn’t blend the same way; you don’t get the foam and it hasn’t got the silky quality.

There you go.  My one-minute martini ritual. 

What’s in your fridge?

Well, it’s Thursday, so NOT MUCH.

We shop week to week and generally finish up everything.  We NEVER run out of food, and we NEVER throw anything away.  We have mysterious and efficient shopping practices on which there will be MORE LATER.

We buy the exact amount we need, no more no less.  On Thursday there remain sufficient ingredients to make the last two meals. Plus a bit of lunch on Saturday IF THAT WAS THE PLAN.

We used, post-university, to be frozen and jar people.  Lots of stuff in the freezer and lots of stuff in jars. Then sometime in 2004/2005 we remembered that we were middle class and this simply wouldn’t do because it was horrid.

Now we buy actual things and make actual dinners in our actual oven.

So our fridge currently contains:

Butter
Cheese (lots of cheese – we’re big on cheese)
Wraps
Wholemeal bread
Apple Sauce (Don’t ask – he puts it in sandwiches)
Some meat wrapped in foil which I am not going to open because it is nothing to do with me
Lettuce
Cherry tomatoes
Leek
Lime
Coke
Sugar-free lemonade
Sugar-free Red Bull
Black cherry Sidekick
Mango Juice
Cranberry Juice
Milk
BBQ sauce
Crutons
Sandwich pickle
Half a bottle of rosé wine (for about the next 5 minutes)
Miscellaneous food-colouring gels

None of this appears to make sense until you understand that I am having cheese and pickle salad wraps for my lunch this week, and he is having meat/apple sauce sandwiches, and that our final two dinners are pasta based, requiring fewer fridge ingredients. And that we are alcoholics and mainly use our fridge for cooling our mixers.

There you go – an insight into our lives.

And our fridge. 

Day 5 - 5pm today

5pm is when the fun begins. 

Not that I don’t enjoy my work. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t fun, but it’s hard, quite selfless work at times, and 5pm is when it’s all about me. A little psychological signal that it's time to switch off.

I usually leave work between 4 and 5pm, depending what I want to get done, but I leave at 4pm at least three days a week, if I’m brutally honest. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, typically.

It’s only a 25 minute drive, so by 5pm I am definitely always home, and @superlative gets home about quarter past. Therefore:

5PM IS COCKTAIL HOUR.

He likes it (and me too actually), when he arrives home and I hand him a martini as he walks into the room. I have usually started dinner, so the music is on, the cocktails are made, and I am sipping away, chopping the fennel or grating the parmesan or whatever.

I don't drink to forget.
That's just a happy coincidence.

Our home is a little oasis of calm by the sea. People ask me about my home life, and the word I always go to is serene. It’s quiet and tasteful and pleasant and calm and sponsored by Absolut.

We have an untroubled life, and 5pm is when I really start to realise this, and appreciate how lucky we are. We’re like a modern day Margot and Jerry Leadbetter. Only we don’t drink tonic.

Of course, today being a bank holiday, we are off schedule somewhat.

Cocktail Hour started at 1.30.

Twenty-somethings...

Last weekend I went out for a birthday with lots of twenty-somethings.

I felt SO. OLD.

Some of them weren’t even that much younger than me.  Only a couple of years, but they seemed so much younger. We went to a bit of an impromptu house party for a friends birthday; just a little bunch of gays, none of whom I really knew.

But it was really fun.

But they just don’t get tired. And they can drink so much. They made questionable home-made horrorshow cocktails comprising whatever random nastiness they could find. Wine and beer and sambuca and vodka and whatever else they could lay their hands on.

I even drank it.

But they just appear to feel no effects at all. They just carried on. I was already hungover before I went to bed. It was awful.

But then I started thinking... ‘Hang on. I remember this.’ And I recalled when I first started working in schools and I socialised with the little school crowd and really started drinking properly, that’s what we did.  

We drank anything. Everything.

Even really horrible things we didn’t even want or like.

I’d forgotten. Or repressed it, maybe. But maybe it’s not that different.

Either way, they are hardcore. Or I’ve become really, really softcore.

Don’t get me wrong. We had a lovely time. An amazing time... I’ve never met such a warm, welcoming group of people in my life. They were great.

But so young.

And they party too hard.

Holidays

I love holidays. Holidays are awesome. I’ve just been on holiday. And it was awesome.

But there’s something pretty wonderful about not being on holiday too. After 5 days I was totally ready to go home. Don’t get me wrong – I had a great time, and I didn’t *want*to come home – but I was well ready to go home. I wasn’t sad.

7 days subsisting purely on Pringles and vodka really does me no favours at all. After 5 days, my body was screaming at me to stop drinking, eat normal food and stay in, have an early night and read a book. All I want is beans on toast.

 

It’s funny though- you could just take it easy whilst you’re away.  But it NEVER HAPPENS. You’ve paid all that money to stay somewhere exciting, where you can go nuts, drink like a fish and dress like a whore... so staying in your hotel for the evening, watching weird Euro TV just seems such a waste.

So we push our luck. Every night. Then feel horrible all day, every day, and struggle to crawl to the beach to lie in the unforgiving sun for the rest of the afternoon.

But here’s the thing. I like to go home because actually, my holiday routine and my home routine aren’t actually that different. I go and sit on the beach, I go out for scrummy dinners, I drink cocktails, then I go and have dirty drinks in some dirty gay bar, then maybe end up dancing in a binty outfit. It’s not that different at all. 

I’m never sad about going home because I like my life at home. It’s pretty much identical to my life on holiday. I kind of feel like some people go on holiday, then HATE coming home because they’re actually not that happy with their normal, day-to-day life.  

But yeah- it’s pretty much identical. With the exception that when I’m home, I can do all the same things, but have a night off and sit on the sofa watching Ru Paul’s Drag Race and eating pasta without feeling like I’m wasting my money.

Long live pasta.