Regular readers will be aware that sponsoring me gets you a mention on the blog. So, today I'm saying a huuuuuge thank you to Rimmer (aka Rob), Lou M and the Northern monkeys Vera and Lyn.
On Tuesday I forgot to thank our receptionist at work, Carol, for her donation. For those of you who don't know her and would like a mental image, just imagine if there was a Bond film called 'Miss Moneypenny the later years' then you have a rough idea. Carol, is one of the best people I know; she's incredibly kind, funny and unassuming. She's past retirement age but she continues to work because of her love of the job...that's Carol.
The first job I ever had reduced me to tears. I was fifteen years old and chopping onions as a kitchen assistant for the Countrymen Hotel in Long Melford, Suffolk. Since then most of the other jobs have reduced me to tears for differing reasons....I've sold timeshare, worked on a campsite in France, been an estate agent (insert your own boooo! here) and I nearly managed to work a whole day in a Burger King....I was a student and they put me on fries all day so I walked out.
Anyway, I used to earn £20 every Sunday for five hours of food preparation and washing up at the Countryman. I also got to be the butt of all the chefs jokes...oh how we laughed about hiding a cheese grater in the soapy water and locking me inside the walk-in fridge....but I had cash in my pocket and a smile on my face at the end of my shift. Happy Days.
Best of all were the Christmas parties...an annual pub crawl around Long Melford. Being a spotty teenager with the physique of bamboo cane I was happy that it was fancy dress...disguising myself was the only way to get served.
So, the first time I ever got drunk was December 31st 1988 and I was cutting a dash around Melford as Russia's Mr Scary, Mikhail Gorbachev. Ok, not the most exciting choice, but I figured nobody would expect an awkward teenager to masquerade as the former Russian president in a sleepy Suffolk village.
There was just one minor fault with my cunning plan...the only thing anyone would serve me was vodka...all night. Correction, there was actually two minor faults with my plan...I also had to drink everything through a straw that was poking out from a hole I had cut in Gorby's lips. After 15 years of sobriety, six pubs and 12 double vodkas, I was really wasted long before the clocks struck twelve.
I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all the New Years '88 revellers who saw Mikhail Gorbachev weaving through Melford wearing a police cone party hat and urinating over his shoes on the village green.
i've never drunk vodka since...the smell makes me want to be sick. I lost the Gorbachev mask, most of my memory and woke up in a bath on New Years Day 1989...maybe I should have gone as James Bond.
best wishes
David
