Rolling in the deep...

Apparently, January 14th is the day when most people give up the New Year's resolutions they had committed to a fortnight earlier.  

I did it a bit differently this year.  My resolution was to cancel my National Lottery account, which, over the past fifteen years or so, has had a serious battering due to unfulfilled promises of unending riches.  Let's face it, if any of us were married to someone who said to us every Wednesday and Saturday that tomorrow just might be the day that changes our life, we may well have kicked them to the kerb long before my fifteen years.  So, by 10.00 on New Year's Day, my account was closed down, and I was able to be rather smug for the next 364 days.

Not so the husband...

'What are your resolutions, then?' I asked him after a particularly boozy curry with Miss R and her fiancé Mr L.  This took place three days before Christmas, and Russell Brand was seated at the next table having a quiet meal with friends.  It's worth mentioning at this point, that the husband, after several failed attempts at a selfie of the four of us (these resulted in lovely photos of a dish of poppadums, a chandelier, Mr L's left ear and two of our waiters) asked Mr Brand whether he would mind taking it for us.  Well, he was most obliging, and just as he was taking the photo, the husband chipped in with, 'make sure you're not taking a selfie of yourself there, Russell'.  

Such is the demon drink.

So back to the resolutions.  'I'm giving up sausage rolls for the year'.  Now, I don't know how many sausage rolls you have to eat to make it even necessary to say that you are going to give them up for a whole year.  I reckon that over a twelve month period, I have eaten no more than eight sausage rolls, and that is hardly life threatening.  After this statement, I did start wondering whether he was going to Sausage Rolls Anonymous on a regular basis.  Perhaps the treatment for this starts off with you cutting out those small frozen ones you get at Christmas, moving onto the odd one from the petrol station and then very, very slowly, building up to the zenith of sausage rolls.  The Greggs Sausage Roll.  

But for whatever reason, sausage rolls are obviously an issue for the husband, so they are forbidden fruit for the next twelve months apparently.  There was a small stumble last Tuesday, when the husband suggested that we reheat the sausage plait which was left from Christmas.  'You can't eat that', I said, 'that's just a massive sausage roll'.  After a long debate as to whether this was the case, the argument ended with with him conceding that just because the pastry was plaited rather than rolled, it still constituted a sausage roll and it was left to yours truly to make the ultimate sacrifice and polish it off with a nice glass of wine.

Let's now move onto the second of his resolutions.  On Saturday afternoon, we were invited to the birthday party of a dear, dear friend.  Mr W had hit his half century (in candle terms, rather than batting) and we were invited to celebrate with him.  'I'll drive', said the husband.  'You know I'm not drinking any alcohol this year'.  Ah yes, that resolution.  

Well, we got to the venue, took our coats off, walked to the bar, greeted the first friend we saw, and he ordered a pint of Guinness.  

On the way home in the car (not ours, as it had to be abandoned at the roadside) the husband spoke for much of the journey about various caveats to his resolution.  After twenty minutes, I came to realise that his resolution only applied unless he was out, on holiday, watching rugby or in the same room (any room, actually) as his great friend Mr H.

January 14th falls on this Saturday.  If he makes it to 12th, I'll be surprised...