Day 20 - Time flies, but the days are so much longer

Day 20. I can't quite believe that. Three weeks tomorrow since that Monday night bender that precipitated my decision to quit. It feels like a lifetime ago and yet this all still seems to new and fresh.

So much happened today - I got my lie in (I got up in deference to a jet lagged husband yesterday - another thing that drinking me would not have been able to do), but I still bounded out of bed at about 11am, did a little work, and then set about my 'project', a caravan restoration which I launched myself at with enthusiasm for a few weeks last summer but which has mouldered on the driveway ever since.

I've decided I want to finish it for my birthday (2 weeks time) so that it can be a bar/social space for anyone who actually shows up to the BBQ that I rashly (and drunkenly, that Monday) decided to host. I'm really not a social person, so hosting An Event is a bit of a thing for me. I'm trying to be laid back about it, though, in keeping with new me.

Anyway - 30 minutes of sloshing paint around, off into the village to play at a concert for a couple of hours (thank you, sun, for coming out just in time), then home and into the garden. My new lawn mower arrived and sad as it may seem I had a fantastic time with it - it actually cuts the grass! The old one sort of flattened it, and churned some of it up, but this thing has made our tiny raggedy lawn look half presentable.

That spurred me on into a frenzy of weeding, trimming and watering, and I have to say I'm actually quite pleased with how my little patch is looking.

Then back in, and I've done a couple more hours work. I'm nowhere near caught up, but at gone 10pm it's definitely time to stop and relax. I still could do more though, and I'll probably read a little yet - so much for the bed at 10pm resolution - but to even be capable of intellectual thought past about 7pm is still novel to me. I'm just not that knackered, and that's new, and good.

I did have a craving today - it was funny. I watched people drinking at the concert, and thought how normally I would have had a pint, but I didn't really miss it. It was interesting watching who was drinking, who wasn't, how many people actually weren't at an event which I would just assume would be one for cracking out the wine in the sunshine. No, the craving hit me mid evening, just a feeling that I wanted to be slightly out of myself and have the lightness that a single drink gives.

Then of course the voice going, well why not, have one, be moderate, be one of those normal drinkers. Just have one, and stop. The voice is wrong. One leads to two, leads to fuzzy brain and a less good person, and places I don't want to go to again. I don't want to have more than one Day 1. I think I've been lucky, it's not been 'a struggle' as such, but I still don't want to go back to that self loathing and exhaustion and brain fog.

My memory is really improving too, which is paying dividends in so many ways. I'm still reliant on notes and my to-do list but I can watch a movie now and actually remember it a week later, even talk coherently about the plot. And I enjoy things, in general, a lot more now I'm focused on what I'm doing rather than when it will be over and I can get a glass of something.

I finished reading Last Drink to LA today (John Sutherland). I didn't like it at the start, I felt the author was quite condescending and a bit flowery with his language. But the epilogue was interesting, written 20 years later and by a more likeable character I felt. I also read Sober is the New Black, but to be honest the shonky formatting (Kindle version) drove me crackers and the use of !. at the end of every paragraph (one or the other people, not both!) made the grammar nitpicker in me want to weep.

Anyway time for me to get some rest, hopefully another good day tomorrow - I keep waffling on here about how much work I have to do, crunch time tomorrow as I have to actually do it. I think perhaps I should get up nice and early, the poor dog hasn't had a proper walk all weekend either. Early start, good walk, and get the first report finished before everyone wakes up. Stop laughing, dear reader....!