"There's a lot of it about this time of year."
"What?"
"Being drunk," answers my wife.
It starts with all the parties after work. There is a free bar until 10.00 and it's amazing how to find yourself chatting away to all kinds of people who you've spent the rest of the year despising. But now you find yourself in the tinsle glow of peace and goodwill seem perfectly charming. And before you know it you find yourself looking at your watch and saying, "Christ".
My wife rattles about in the cupboard in an exaggeratedly noisy way.
"Alka Seltza?"
"Mmm, that's it."
Then you have to drop in on the neighbours. And it is Christmas after all, you can't just have a dry sherry and say "Goodnight" when they've gone to all that trouble of making those flaky pastry affairs with smoked oysters and cream in the middle. And there's no real rush to get back because they've had this brilliant idea of organising a disco for the kids upstairs, where you can't hear them.
And then before you know it, your wife has got the kids at the door and you say, "Catch you up in about 5 minutes..." But then someone makes you try some of that Sticky Pudding wine that costs about 拢20.00 a bottle so you can't just not have any. And maybe just a quick brandy to get you back across the road.
By now the legs have gone and the house is in darkness and you're rattling the key in the lock and sneaking upstairs and remembering not to flush the toilet too loud. But it doesn't matter how quiet you are because your wife's body clock is programmed to wake up and ask you if you're drunk.
Trouble is, if you're not drunk, you have to take your turn at seeing to the baby. So you put his nappy on inside out, give him his bottle, slope downstairs to kick your shoes off. Of course you don't manage to get them both off because you make the mistake of closing your eyes just for a moment which is where you wake up three hours later with your foot in the coal bucket...
