Florence Nightingale for hangovers

If I drink spirits I get hangovers that consume me from the inside out. They wrack my body with thumping headaches, light-sensitivity, an aching body, an inability to eat or drink anything at all, and a pattern of vomiting every half-hour until nearly exactly 24 hours has passed since I started drinking. Spirits have always done this to me. Yet it took me almost eight years and a final, milestone incident on a sunny Sunday in Brighton involving one such hangover, Brighton pier and a clear plastic bag to realise I should stop drinking them! 

But before the Brighton misdemeanour, I spent a high-spirited (oops, accidental pun, which I shall keep I'm afraid!) evening with a friend of mine that is a lot better, and faster, at drinking than me. I attempted to keep up with her pace, and failed epically. 

The next day, after being scraped off the floor and into the car, and then brought home, my family took to calling me 'Wino' (more because of the resemblance to Amy Winehouse, with the streaky mascara and dishevelled hair, than an actual alcohol problem- I think). At some point in the afternoon I managed to make it downstairs to sit on the sofa, regularly being sick into the Official Sick Bowl that has been used for that purpose ever since I can remember when you're ill and won't be able to make it to the toilet. My small sister (three at the time) came to sit with me, despite my protestations. I felt like maybe I would die. Small sister soon went away, apparently bored by my inability to play. But shortly she returned, dressed in her nurses' garb. She had her toy nursing things with her, and she took my blood pressure and temperature before heading off to the kitchen. She returned with a glass of coca cola with a straw, which she fed to me in small sips, and an ice cube that she rubbed on my lips to wet them. I'd never thought of doing that before. It was amazingly soothing. She was like the Florence Nightingale of hangovers.

Gullible

My sister asked me at the pub one evening if I had heard that they had taken the word 'gullible' out of the Scrabble dictionary. I told her that that was a rubbish joke, and she told me that someone had said the same thing to her earlier that day, and she had believed them. She was upset that I didn't fall for it.

The not-very-exotic man

I was on my way to have some travel vaccinations, trying to work out which exit to take out of Turnpike Lane station when a middle-aged man in an anorak and a baseball cap and funny little glasses approached me. He asked me where I was from, and commented that he thought I was from somewhere exotic, because I looked exotic. I told him that I was in fact not at all exotic, just plain old English. He asked me lots more questions about myself, and again I found myself answering them (note to self: need to stop being so polite in odd situations). The man seemed a little left-field, but harmless, although he reminded me slightly of Robin Williams' character in the film one hour photo. However, after a few minutes of questioning and attempted conventional conversation exits, I had to walk away from the man whilst he was still talking to me.

Whilst we were sleeping #2

Him having fallen asleep watching a film on the sofa after a very long week, I tried to wake up the boy. "Come on, let's get you to bed before I have to.. (carry you there)" Before I got to say that last bit, without waking up, he said, in a yorkshire accent (and he is not from yorkshire): "Butter me up and put me in a sandwich".

Whilst we were sleeping #1

I was awoken by the question "Who said moithering?". I answered "No one, what is moithering?" There was no answer.

The Crazy Finsbury Park Lady

Last week I heard a commotion through my earphones whilst waiting on the northbound victoria line platform at Finsbury Park. I looked around to see what was going on and turned off my music. A group of Jamaican women were standing around a pram, and one was screaming and shouting at the others whilst they laughed at her. Her accent was so thick that I couldn't work out what she was so agitated about.
People on the platform were looking at each other in that British way when someone is making a bit of a show.
I looked away but then a movement caught my eye: the woman was taking her top off!
She threw her top onto the floor and shouted some more in her bra.
Just when the rest of us witnessing this thinking this was the strangest thing we'd seen on a tube platform, she started taking off her shorts, except this time she threw them onto the track instead of just the floor. Blimey! Now the woman was shouting and screaming at her cackling friends in just her bra, tiny thong, and sandals. She ran around the pram a few times before taking off her bra as well. Unfortunately she had those breasts that look a bit like Snoopy's ears..you know the ones, long and flat with a little retrousse rise at the bottom. Not the most scintillating of sights on a sticky London afternoon.
The woman went off for a jog about the adjacent platform. She of course ended up deciding to stand next to me. Being very polite and ever so English, I just pretended I was reading my paper and that a woman standing next to me in just a thong and sandals with her wangers flapping about was just your standard every day occurrence. I tend to attract nutters in this way and have adopted a policy of least resistance, or perhaps a policy of imagining I am wearing an invisibility cloak (doesn't work very often, I am one for getting stuck in conversation with strangelings).
Her friends, trying to contain themselves- or maybe just trying not to wet themselves with the apparent hilarity of it all, collected up her remaining items of clothing, and brought them over to her. She put them back on, got on the tube that arrived and sat down, sans-shorts, and pulled a little girl, looking about 18months old, onto her lap.