Once upon a time, Friday afternoon was all about the cocktails here at Casa Uborka. But as all you regular readers will know from Pete’s recent posts, there has been much less of that sort of thing lately. I may not have mentioned this, but a couple of years ago I was diagnosed with stomach ulcers. I should have mentioned it, because starting on the meds changed my world from one where continual acid indigestion was an accepted norm, the only variant being how much worse it got when I was under stress; to one where I never have to reach for a bottle of gaviscon to get through the night again. Helpfully, there is also the option of modifying my diet to reduce the symptoms: I can stop eating and drinking all my favourite things. Chocolate. Red wine. Spicy food. Tomatoes. Garlic. Coffee. Happy days. I’d rather take the drugs. However it turns out that as time goes by, some of things don’t taste good anymore – what’s that about? I can no longer drink even a small glass of wine, even the most mellow and expensive lovely old red (and I am salivating thinking about such a thing) will turn into plonk in my mouth. This has taken some mental and emotional adjustment.

For a while there, I made do with fruity ciders (apple ciders generally being waaaay too acidic), but find them excessively sweet and sugary. Then I turned to Crabbie’s ginger beer, and actually would very happily exist on that for the rest of time, but once Pete decided he was no longer a Beer And Whiskey Man, it occurred to me that there’s plenty of perfectly nice non-alcoholic ginger beer, cordial, and so on, and I too could simply stop drinking alcohol.

So I did. And it is fine. And I have to try quite hard not to be a bit born-again about it, but I really don’t miss the booze. It helps that I don’t have that many nights out, but we did most of our drinking on our own sofa anyway.

So I’d like to lift a glass of elderflower and lime cordial to all of you, and offer you something from the bar; we’ve got a load of stuff to get rid of now.