Pleasure and Pain

Thirst is easily quenched if you're lucky enough to be in the right place but occasionally if I'm dry I'll wait to parch, usually because I think I deserve it.

Maybe if I've had a day walking and I know I could have a swig of cool water but in an hour there's a cool beer to look forward to, I know I shouldn't but I might just wait, because I know that beer will taste so good. Because I'm thirsty. Wrong but oh so right.

I've had a discussion with a mate about the best beer ever. It's funny because as much as I love real ale, and don't like the tasteless lagers that are all brewed in the same place to a slightly differing recipe, it's not the taste, it's the occasion that makes for the *best* beer for me. Early this summer a four night camp in the hills in the Lakes with my mate Simon, it was so hot, heavy heavy backpacks, water filters that had no water to filter. We came to Howtown by Ullswater after many miles and had what was up there with the best beers ever. I don't even know what it was but the phrase 'Hitting the Spot' was born for real that minute...

Or when you've had a real 'day' and you take a cold bottle from the fridge, the condensation beads form immediately on the surface and you hear the hiss as the cap pops.

Oh that's pleasure...

The pain is when you put the bottle cap in the pocket of some trousers that inexplicably have pockets round the knee, you forget it's there and you kneel down...