Days Without Alcohol 92. Three months in. A quarter of a year. Feels both longer and shorter than that. I am now totally used to being teetotal and don't even think about ordering anything stronger than tap water when I am in a pub. It's going to be hard to go back. Well it's going to be very easy, but it's a big step and will require some moment of import I imagine. I am keen to press onwards with this for the moment at least. I am about a kilogram heavier than I was at the start of the month, though was ill then and also I have been on tour. Last year I put on a stone during my tour, approximately half a stone a month, so it's quite something to be roughly the same weight as I was four weeks ago. And more importantly I am 10kg lighter than I was in December. Work seems to be going well and I am more content than I have been for a good while. I still recommend giving abstinence a try. Everyone is saying how healthy I look. Will April break me? Will a week in Sicily make beer or wine too difficult to resist? There is a part of me that thinks it's a bit pathetic to give up entirely and that I should really be aiming to drink moderately in a way that means I get all the benefits without being quite such a martyr. But then again I worry that opening the door will send a tidal wave of lovely, lovely alcohol cascading all over my delighted face. I don't think I am going to write a book about it any more and if anything I might do a book about losing weight, in which I will argue that you can consume anything you like and lose weight, you just have to watch your calories. Another part of me thinks that I could have a year of not drinking in the country of England, allowing me to drink on holiday and (tellingly) in Edinburgh. But I might then just keep hopping on the Eurostar every day, or driving to Wales. Or going into a London embassy, which is not officially English soil. We will see. I am mainly terrified of undoing all the good work. I think it's safe to say that I will make it to 100. I think.
Edinburgh preparation continues and today I had to go and sign off my budget for "The Headmaster's Son". We have not yet found a venue for "Christ on a Bike", but I am fairly confident that something will become available. I also took in some pictures and bits of schoolday tat for the poster. I took a photo of how I imagined it might look - it's very rough obviously and there will be less carpet in the final design, but it gives you an idea.
This is how I pass my time. I continued to amuse myself with reading through old diaries. The one I am is actually beyond the remit of the show and included many an exciting tale of hitch-hiking and Eurorailing round Europe. For example, my entry for March 10th 1986 tells of the first couple of days of my jaunt around the continent. I had been meant to meet my friend Geoff at Calais, but something had gone wrong and we'd missed each other. I had headed down to Marseilles and had stayed over night in a Youth Hostel. Let my diary take up the story, which I remember unsurprisingly very clearly,
"I looked for a campsite, wishing to stay in Marseilles for another night to have a look around, but the one I found was full. As I was wondering what to do a car was sort of following me. I looked around and the man inside beckoned me. He said something in French. I said'Je ne comprends pas, je suis Anglais" and he said 'Do you want to make love with me?' I said 'No thank you," not really believing it. He called me back again and I thought he had been joking. Then he said something about money, pointed to his mouth and then pointed to my cock. I said 'Non' and walked briskly away."
How charming that I rejected him in his own language. And how stupid I was. He was offering to pay me and I would be getting a blow job (and it would have been my first). I should at least have found out how much he was offering.
I am being flippant, of course, because at the time, alone in a foreign country I was very shaken by it. Luckily Geoff and me had made a rough arrangement, if we had missed each other, to meet at the railway station at midday. It was quite a vague plan as the railway station was huge, but thankfully I saw Geoff's curly head bobbing through the crowd and I had a companion for my travels. It would have been a lot less fun without him. Though I might have had more sex and made some money.
What larks we had, ridiculous and naive eighteen year old idiots as we were.
I would like to wish my Grandma Doris a very happy 97th birthday. What a remarkable woman she is. If only she knew how I was then this greeting might mean something to her. But I still love her very much, even if she doesn't recognise me.
