My first proper job - Monday to Friday, nine to five - was at British Aerospace in Weybridge. I didn't like it much. Firstly, I just didn't get programming and, secondly, it was still a very seventies office (this being the super modern 1988). On a Friday, at midday, we'd all go to the pub and we'd stay there until the managers left, which would usually be between half-one and two but was sometimes as late as three. And then, at four o'clock, everyone would drive home.

This wasn't my earliest exposure to lunchtime drinking, though, as I grew up in an era when the menfolk would go to the pub on a Sunday lunchtime. After church, my dad and I would meet up with my uncles and sundry friends of theirs at the Malden Tavern, under strict instructions from my mum to be home by two o'clock. I remember I'd start getting tense around one-thirty when another round was ordered, yet this was rarely the last one.

As I grew older, I progressed from tomato juice to beer and I became a little more relaxed about the time although progressively more perturbed about the drink driving and my mum being (justifiably) irritated by our late arrival home. People, it was a very different era.

Today, though, it was me making the roast. But whilst Sunday lunchtime at the pub is no longer on my agenda, that doesn't mean abstinence is the order of the day. I enjoyed this glass of sherry while I peeled the carrots and another one shortly afterwards. 

I was planning that we'd eat at one o'clock but despite my best efforts to synchronise the chicken with the roast vegetables and the peas, it was after two o'clock when we sat down to eat. The reception from the kids, though, was very positive, so I just need to get a bit more slick with my timing.