Who's the Daddy: Drinking helps it all make sense

Put it this way, if your needs are greater than ours, I’ll give you the keys to my house.

Last Friday night me and the boss and four of our friends, who we’ve known so long I can’t remember a time when we didn’t know them, huddled around a metal table in our back yard, cowering under umbrellas as the rain came down in stair rods while we glugged wine, beer and anything we’d all brought to the party – in a socially distanced way, of course.

Our little chimney, a flaming crucible of warmth, did its very best to keep out the chill, and daughter #2’s portable speaker took a break from blasting out show tunes and instead played the greatest music ever made – mainly from 1988 to 1992.

You know you’re drunk when you’re at a party and during an animated conversation decide to go into business with people you barely know.

We didn’t quite reach the level of advanced refreshment that requires a stomach pump and a few hours on a drip in A&E but all made a financial commitment nonetheless. A plan was hatched, second Great Depression and years of mass unemployment notwithstanding, to pitch in every month to a joint bank account, which by 2023 and this living nightmare hopefully over, would pay for six flights and a few nights in a hotel in New York.

It made perfect sense at the time, everything does when you’re half-cut and you’ve got your friends around you. But to be honest, it’s about the only thing that’s keeping me going.

I only hope the US’ looming Second Civil War is done and dusted by then.

At the same time our daughters, in an almost unheard of display of unity, went on their first night out together in one of our fair city’s finest gin palaces.

And once daughter #2 had her fill, daughter #1 put her in a taxi home and carried on until the wee small hours with her friends.

Even though the world’s going to hell in a hand basket, sometimes you need a little break from reality.