Growing up is optional

“My policy has always been to burn my bridges behind me. My face is always set toward the future. If I make a mistake it is fatal. When I am flung back I fall all the way back—to the very bottom.”


— The Rosy Crucifixion: Sexus, Plexus, Nexus by Henry Miller


*******


The delayed joint birthday celebrations took place today as NPW and I finally managed to meet in Waterloo and continue our annual ritual of drinking too much and behaving moderately badly.

‘Happy birthday to us" said NPW as we clink-clinked glasses for our first pint (we are the same age and our birthdays are just three days apart). It wasn’t long before we had settled into our cosy corner seats at Brewdog and in no time we were on our second drink. Clink clink. 

We ate. I had my usual vegan bacon double cheeseburger and he had a chicken burger called The Cluck Norris which he thought was hysterical. ‘Did you know" he said "that Chuck Norris was born the day Hitler committed suicide? Can’t be a coincidence. Germany surrendered the next day". 

We decided to move on. NPW was foolish enough to try the slide which left him feeling disoriented. "We’re too old for that" I said, but he was always the more adventurous one. 

I took us on a detour through Leake street to see the graffiti, down Lower Marsh and across into The Cut, reminiscing about my stag night thirty eight years before in one of the local pubs. The best man had knocked over a table full of drinks and then passed out. 

Stopped for a half in The Union which is a terrible pub and smelled like a sewer. "Sorry lads, got a problem with the drains" said the barman. They had lit several josticks but it made no difference. 

We moved on to The Mad Hatter on the corner of Blackfriars Road and Stamford Street. We had three halves of bitter and three whiskies. Jura and Laphroaig. NPW’s brother in law joined us briefly, but was on the Diet Coke as he was driving back to Derby that evening. We still made him stand his round so it was an expensive evening for him. The barmaid was a lovely young Belgian woman who lived with her boyfriend in Battersea and got the number 344 bus home every evening. One of the benefits of being old is that young women tend to be relaxed and chatty with you and see you as harmless. That’s my experience anyway. Young men by contrast tend to find you either a bit daunting or in need of an excess of polite respect. Perhaps you remind them of their father. Or worse, grandfather.

We walked down to London Bridge, stopping for a nightcap in a basement bar in Borough High Street. Another beer and a double Glenlivet. On the basis that one whisky is equal to half a pint of beer we had drunk the equivalent of fourteen whiskies or seven pints of beer.

I messaged home to say that I was feeling tired and emotional. A neighbour found me as I walked back from our local station and offered me an arm to steady me as she had noticed I was veering about a bit. Well I was very tired …

Got back at eight thirty and after a few niceties was in bed by nine.

Good day.