Time in talk and drink and smoke

I've just come back from spending the best part of the day with a group of old merchant navy sailors, their wives, and my two kids. I am, frankly, rather tiddly and in charge of two Midgets. I have laughed my arse off all day. I have been drinking Guinness with whiskey chasers most of the day. I have seen The Midgets work their charms like I have never seen them do so before. Even I thought they were lovely - they have been positively enchanting all day.

This is, sadly, probably the best day I have had as being myself in quite a long time. I spend most of my days trying to be a very watered down version of myself. No swearing apart from 'bugger' (and even that's had to stop since Midget 1 jumped up and down on his slide in the back garden, whilst all our neighbours were having barbecues, shouting "Bugger! Bugger bugger bugger! Bugger!"), nothing that isn't a very tame PG on the telly, painting, potty training, toddler wrangling, baby pacifying - this is what I do now. And that was just when I was in an office.

I spend the times I am at playgroups pretending to be somebody else, when I am out and about being somebody else, and even when I am lounging around my house I pretend to be somebody else. I don't actually go out on my own - last Friday being testament to how few social skills and graces I now have.

The reason I was with these old sea dogs today was to celebrate my Uncle. When he died, I wrote an extract from a letter I had read in a published work in a card that went in with him. I've been wracking my brains trying to remember who wrote it, and have been running around trying to locate it. Turns out I've been looking for the wrong author - it's actually a letter to Philip Larkin from Kingsley Amis.

"I enjoy talking to you more than to anybody else because I never feel I am giving myself away and so can admit to shady, dishonest, crawling, cowardly, unjust, arrogant, snobbish, lecherous, perverted and generally shameful feelings that I don't want anybody else to know about; but most of all because I am always on the verge of violent laughter when talking to you.
If you were here, I keep thinking, we would spend the time in talk and drink and smoke, and I should be laughing a lot of the time, and I should be enjoying myself a lot of the time."

I think that this is what we are all looking for in a partner, but we usually only find it in our friends. So - ta ra Unc, my best friend, you selfish old sod for dumping me in this miserable life without someone to take the total piss out of me. You old bugger.