PARENTS AND THEIR DRINKING

This is not good. I am hungover as a result of hosting my 18 year olds party. I am attempting to look after my 7 year old niece and have been up since 6.30am having my hair styled into something that makes me look mildly amphibian. I then had to search for snails/old easter eggs in the garden whilst wearing my dressing gown and sprouty hair. Please don’t let the neighbours have seen me. We have also made grass soup.

Now my daughter has just got up and berated me for being loud and silly at the party I was hosting for my brothers birthday, my sister in laws birthday and my sons end of school party. She rolled her eyes and said “all you did when I was trying to take some photos was grab the nearest person and squish them to you so they couldn’t breathe – everyone looked completely mangled”. Oh. Well, seems to me that’s a good way of always looking better than everyone else. She’s right though. I’ve just looked at the photos. Ridiculous. Lots of mangled faces with me hanging off them.

In amongst snail hunts and hair disasters I was trying to read the paper. There is an article about “Parents and their drinking”. According to a new survey, children who see their parents drunk are twice as likely to binge on alcohol themselves. Really? That’s a blow. I was trying really hard to put them off.

We all had a great night though. I hired a room in a pub on the river. Just lovely. I pretended it was my house and felt hugely grand (even in a pub). We had a lovely mix of friends and family. GREAT in fact. I don’t care now that I’ve got a headache, it was so completely worth it to see my 18 year old son dancing with my teeny weeny mother to our family anthem (“Pata Pata”). My father, I hope was somewhere in the vicinity enjoying every minute and being proud of us all for finding lots of excuses for getting together and having fun.