Six months sober today. If I calculate six pounds per night on wine average, that’s paid for the Audi. Good thing too. It has been invaluable in this pandemic, having the capacity to move around without coming into contact with anybody else. I’m sitting in it as I write, with the heaters on, looking out at snowy London. I took the car for a spin so it doesn’t freeze up. Also I had some shopping to do for Jacky. Pinot Grigio today, mostly, and smoked fish and some other things. Jacky’s a bit weirded out that I’m not buying myself a bottle of wine anymore like she asks. Expensive chamomile tea was my luxury today. The new crack. I’ll pop open the kettle later and have a good long warning draught of the stuff. Nom.
Snow has settled in London, and the amateur artists have come out. My street was full of snowcocks. Jacky’s street was kinder – little love hearts on the snowed up cars. How bouji.
Five days ago spring was really giving a good showing but now any of the overconfident daffodils that stuck their heads up last week have been roundly murdered by this sudden descent of frost. It’s rare that it gets through the ambient temperature in this city – through the fug of warm carbon that crouches over us all. But it’s here, and it came quickly. Traffic cops are up to their eyeballs in injured delivery drivers, insurance companies are laying on more staff to field the calls from dented bodywork and broken legs, salt manufacturers are charging saffron prices by the weight to panicked councils determined to dissolve our shoes in the process of demonstrating a commitment to safety. The trains don’t really have to run on time right now but I bet they are anyway. Snow is in the city. This is why I went shopping for Jacky. She has bad legs – all the martial arts. She is now fully vaccinated, but she ain’t going shopping in this.
As always, at the top of the stairs, we had a little chat about things. Usually we talk about the industry, our shared agent, our hopes. Today, after her vaccine, she wouldn’t stop talking about Bill Gates. “I have a direct line to him now,” she told me. “He sings to me as I sleep. Join us. Come with us.” Then she stuck her tongue out and it was three foot long. Her shopping was weird too. Alongside the Pinot and the fish, the other things were basically two dozen Birds Eye Frozen London Rats (XL).
I’m back home now, looking forward to my sexy chamomile to celebrate six months sober. I should put some honey and lemon in it to celebrate. And malt whisky? Maybe in August.
AlBarclay 