The Dry Week, Day 2

I used NEVER to drink at Christmas parties. I learned my lesson after a bacchic BBC Education party where horrifyingly drunk strangers crawled drunkenly around the floor with helium balloons tied to our wrists and the names of famous authors strapped to our lapels in fruitless search of vol-aux-vents to soak up the wine. I set off for home and woke up in the bed of a waiter who spoke only French.

Shortly after that I gave up drinking for two years, and thereafter stuck to sobriety at work dos. It was a great policy, and worked out well (Pretty Straight Coder is drunk. I am sober. Any lunge I make is therefore my moral responsibility). Then I moved to Wales, and the whole idea of not drinking (at any time of the day) seemed wrong. Like not taking aspirin for a headache.

So, here I am, at a Christmas Party, two days in to my sober week. It's at my lovely new firm. The party is full of people I don't really know, they seem rather nice. I make a bit of small talk. I realise how dull I sound (I know none of you well enough to talk about anything other than work). When I realise I'm talking to the Prettiest Man In The Room about database integration, I go home.

Also, frankly, these pills have made me knackered. But I'll make up for it next week.