Hold the booze

Three months into 2007 I can confidently say I'm having a bad drinks year. It all started on new year's of course. We landed at Trattoria after a hard day's work and a drive past Marine Drive (where no one knew what they were doing) only to be told we would have to wait 45 minutes. Since none of us wanted to wait that long we trudged off to a friend's house in Cuffe Parade with some food and tried to make do with what little alcohol was there. Readymade Bloody Mary mixes really aren't any good so off we went back to Trats where in full support of the paper's 2'007' theme, I asked for a Martini. All I can say is I'll never be a Bond girl.
I had this lovely bottle of Absolut Raspberry and a family do coming up on January 26 so I thought I would keep away from alcohol and then really binge. It was not to be. At an office party on January 25, I was served a peg of three quarters horrible Grey Goose vodka and a quarter glass of Sprite which had me rushing to the Taj loo to puke and a hangover that put me off so completely that I could only play the hostess who doesn't drink.
Mojitos at a recent dinner were another medicinal no-no so that I will only be saying yes to beer for some time now.
And for all those who are wondering what any of this has to do with either travel or books, well, the vodka came from Singapore on someone else's travels and well, everything in life is connected to books somehow.

I think it's now safe to explain the 'trust in your dreams' picture.
So there I was going about life as usual when one fine day Conrad writes to me saying Mrs Lessing will be speaking at the Cheltenham literary festival and ha ha you're going to miss it. Suitably riled, I replied back: Ha ha that's what you think. That sowed the seed. I made him book a ticket for the talk (which turned out to be an early birthday present, thanks C) and a month or so later I was on the plane looking down on London in autumn.
It gave rise to a lot of jokes at my expense, the most common one being "See you in four months". And as I was running (as usual) for my plane back and as I huffed and puffed my way to the counter at Heathrow and found the door of the plane closed I panicked. The man was unruffled and told me to go sit down and catch my breath. "But..." I said. "The plane's been delayed," he said. Relieved, I started to walk away when another man at the counter said, "I remember you. You were running the last time too."
I didn't know whether to be mortified or to be pleased.