Who Am I?

To be a Jones, or not to be a Jones, that is the question.

So, I’m getting mazzered in 252 days, which means that potentially, in 36 weeks, I wave goodbye to Kim Willis.

I did not choose to be a Willis. I could have been named anything and I’m sure I would have loved it. Except, possibly, a Wiper, which is an actual real surname belonging to a friend of mine. That name I don’t think I’d have worn as quite the badge of honour he wears it, but then, he wears red trousers and has turned Wiper into a part of his quirky identity.

But any other name, tagged at birth and never having known any different, I’m sure I would have loved. As it was, I was given Willis. It’s my dad's name, and traditionally in my country of birth, the United Kingdom of Crap and Boring Names, the father’s surname is given to descendants.

I grew up a Willis and that meant being good at sport, winning, hosting great parties, never cheating or stealing, talking too much and too loudly and having a penchant for boats. That’s what it meant to be a Willis and I was proud of it.

Now I’m 29 years old. I’m no longer age zero, accepting the reality of the world to which I was presented. I’m now very much defined by my name. You can Google me if you want, I come up as number one. Unless you’re in America, in which case some religious nut comes up as number one. But I’m chasing her tail.

When I was a little girl, it dawned on me that women changed their names upon marriage. Nope, I thought, the mutineer in me already stirring. My name isn't going anywhere. Unless I marry someone with the surname Slazenger. I liked the letter Z, see, and thought it was a cool enough name to lose mine for. But anything less than Slazenger, no thanks.

Only slight problem is I’ve never met a man with the surname Slazenger, let alone fallen in love with one. Which makes the whole name change thing tricky. The man I’ve decided to marry (alright, he decided to marry me, but I still had a say) has the surname Jones.

Now, apologies to anyone reading who has the surname Jones, but it’s not exactly exciting. Catherine Zeta added the Zeta just to jazz it up a bit. She probably shared my fondness for the letter Z and was lucky enough to have a grandmother with a zeddy name she could borrow.

Gareth’s name is Gareth Iwan Jones. That’s quite fun. I could nick his middle name and be Kim Iwan Jones. I’d need a hyphen though, so people don’t think I’m a boy. But then I’d still have a different surname to Gareth anyway, mooting the point.

I continued to flip between throwing caution to the wind and accepting Gareth’s name, and being an insubordinate woman who refused to surrender my identity, with all the gusto of the rolling tides, while Gareth paid not a blind bit of notice. He couldn’t care less what I decided to do.

I looked at friends who had recently married. Some had changed their name, some had double barreled and some had steadfastly very much not changed their name. I respected the name changers for the romance of the notion that you ditch such a crucial part of your identity for love. I respected the name keepers for the defiance of tradition and expectation. I didn’t respect the double barrellers. Come on people, pick a lane.

My musings continued. If we’re going to have kids, I’d like to have the same name as them. Like my mum, who, despite 30 years of divorce and countless marriage proposals, chose to keep being a Willis. I like that about her, we’re a family. Although she probably just did it because she has the world’s snazziest signature. What she’s done with the word Willis I can’t even begin to attempt. But then, I’m left handed, it’s as much as I can achieve to not smudge the ‘W’ by the time I get to the ‘s’.

Then, t’other day, Gareth and I were discussing it again and we hit upon an idea. He did not feel the same allegiance to Jones that I felt to Willis, so suggested we come up with a whole new name, just for us. What a fantastical idea! Combining Willis and Jones to make Jillis or Wones is just silly, and Slazenger got vetoed for having no sentimental meaning beyond my childhood penchant for the letter Z, so we decided to look into our family trees and see if there were any names we fancied bringing back from the grave.

I was as happy as a clam by the very spectacle that Gaz was so free spirited and unbound by ego as to willingly change his name to something with a bit more pazazz. I got to thinking. In my immediate family history I’ve got a Van Humbeeck, Ornstien, Osbourne and Le Seelleur.

Hold the front page, we've found a contender. Le Seelleur. How awesome. I know it’s got no Z, but it’s Le Seelleur! Gareth started to imagine what it would look like on his website, I started practising my new signature.

Nonchalantly, Gareth agreed it was pretty cool, but asked, would we have to spell it out to people ten times a day? Who cares, better that than having the same name as everyone else in Wales, I retorted. Le Seelleur. Awesome. I saw us a year from now, signing our names with nothing less than a fountain pen. We’d probably start smoking skinny cigarettes and watching subtitled films.

Then, my god damn future husband changed his mind. That’s right, he changed his mind. ‘It sounds like ‘The Sailor’ he said. ‘It’s ridiculous.’ Then he made a joke about calling our first born Sinbad and ruined all my fun.

And so I’m back to fretting about my identity. Panicking about changing who I am. Pondering if the kids would really give a hoot what their mother’s name was. Wondering if I can spell it Jonez.

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New. Improved. Me.

New Year’s Resolutions. What a cliché. We want to be better versions of ourselves, we make promises and lists, and then, come about the 14th January, we let ourselves down. What a more harmonious place the world would be if we all just accepted our weight, our bitten nails, our mild alcoholism and our lack of charitable deeds.

There are a lot of New Year Revolutionaries in my gym. Pesky folk, irritating me by being on one of the mere four treadmills that I would like to be on, were it not for their influx. But at least I know that, circa the 14th January, they’ll have got bored of the gym. Not me – I’ve got a wedding in 266 days, the gym is my second home. I’m going to get so fit and fabulous I’ll make Elle MacPherson look a bit podgy.

Usually, I avoid resolutions. I’m a pretty good version of me as I am and any plans to improve can be made as and when they are needed, not saved up for society’s One Hit Wonder Eve.

This year, although it shames me to admit it, I’m fit to busting with resolutions. Turns out Kim Willis needed a bit of a spring clean after all.

Get super sexy for the wedding. That means perfect Halle Berry skin, flawless Kate Middleton hair, tiny Jessica Alba bum and svelte Jennifer Aniston arms. When your fiance asks you to spoon him at night so he can ‘feel the warmth of your big fat belly’ you know your fiance does not need to worry that Ryan Gosling might want to run away with his bride-to-be. December’s Egg Nog has been replaced by January’s carrot and beetroot juice and I’m slowly beginning to feel wonderfully smug.

Work really hard so I can afford to pay for the wedding. No dilly dallying, no procrastination, no meandering. No Etsy. (Alright, a little bit of Etsy. Definitely no Daily Mail. (Love to hate it. Hate to love it.)


Possibly gamble all earnings on Poker? If I won big I could ponder Etsy as much as I like... Hmm, there's certainly some mileage in the idea.

Read more. Absorb information, like an eager sponge. I’ve subscribed to the Week in order to be more intelligent at parties and be able to cope when the conversation steers away from Kate Middleton and towards Afghanistan. So far the only information I’ve managed to retain is something about the dead skin in your pillow. Maybe I need to read a book about how to retain information.

Stop buying clothes. I’m out of control. Gareth refers to my sister and I as ‘The Shopping Sisters’ for our incredible ability to shop whenever we meet each other, in a smooth, swift system which we’ve perfected over the years. In. Scan. Possibly Purchase. Out. No messing. My wardrobe gets passed on to charity shops at a terrifying rate. I need to savour the clothes I’ve got and avoid all contact with my credit card.

So that’s me, only better. The old me, with added glitter.


And one more thing. I truly despise giving up alcohol at any time of the year, but most of all this popular time of year, when everyone’s doing it. This is when I most want to drink, just to make an obstinate point. However, I’m on a reluctant White Month – a month in which no alcohol is ingested. (That’s the dictionary definition. Intravenous loop hole?)

This is because December was so utterly lavish and drenched in alcohol that I feel a White Month is all I can do to redress the balance.

So there we have it. In having four resolutions for the new year, I’m attempting to be a better version of myself and in so doing, like myself slightly less for giving in.

Oh well. Next year I’ll go back to having one resolution. To change nothing.

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Card Shark.

The most exciting post I get these days is when I’ve done something special for my friend Cesca, or my mum, as they are both thank-you card types of people. Sometimes my mum puts a little pressie in there too and I get all excited because it’s not a letter from the bank telling me I’ve done something wrong.

And that’s what I used to love about Christmas. Christmas cards galore, flooding my letterbox, the novelty stamp the Royal Mail provide at this time of year stuck in the corner. The proud display all along the mantelpiece. A little bit of news from relatives, a little bit of banter from friends. An impressive array of cards, some fancy, some old fashioned. Some, like my own, from Paperchase.

Ah, Paperchase. Maybe that’s why I love Christmas cards so much. Every year I can’t wait for the excuse to enter it’s glitter filled grottos and browse the tat. I always opt for the charity cards, because I’m such a good egg, but the important thing is the message I’m sending out. (Not Happy Christmas, the other message) ‘I’m the kind of girl who shops in Paperchase. You lucky little recipient.’

Alas, these days, fewer Christmas cards plop onto my doormat. Do I have less friends? Probable. But I blame the internet. It’s ruining my Christmas card collection.

Ok, so there are less trees being chopped down, which is a good thing. But it could be argued that we’ve all got our computers on for longer while we compile these awful, cheesy, sometimes interactive, always deleted Christmas email cards, thus using up more fossil fuels and resulting in the end of the world far sooner than would have happened had we cut down a few trees (and replaced them with new ones – Paperchase is well eco-conscious innit.)

So there you have it. When you compile an e-card (even the term is horrendous) you are bringing about the end of the world. (This is probably not true.) I just got an e-card from someone I do business with. She hadn’t even bothered to address it to me. Instead, it was to ‘Undisclosed recipients.’

Wow, I feel so special. I’m an undisclosed recipient. Thanks so much. Delete.

All those Christmas cards on my mantle piece go one of two ways after Christmas. They either get cut up and used as present tags next year, or if they’ve got a good, funny, personal, loving message from someone special, I’ll put them in my drawer of special things. I’d never actually print out an e-card so they just all get deleted. Where’s the joy in that? My grandchildren won’t get to look through a box of deleted messages one day and look at the beautiful hand writing Aunt Kiki had, or the fancy velvet stars on Amy’s card (she totally out-swanked me this year. I’ll get her back next year. Maybe I’ll up my game and get my cards in Harrods. That’ll show her. I’ll get a 3D card. Glitter will fall into her lap and a butterfly will fly out.)

There are some contenders already for greatest Christmas card given to me. (It’s a yearly contest, FYI.) Because although I’m moaning, some people still send.

Check out these beauties, my top four. Not sure who’ll be crowned the best yet, but the odds are on my future mother-in-law for her genius-ness.

The aforementioned velvet card from Amy. I’m not sure if the velvety goodness comes across here, but trust me, these stars are stroke-able. Oh, and I’ve just checked the back of the card and she only bloody shops in Paperchase too. Course she does! What a legend.

This mildly alarming and eccentric card comes from Peter. Nothing like a card with the words ‘violence, war, terrorism, racism, exploitation and bigotry’ ablazoned on the front to make you feel like it’s time to boil some mulled wine and wrap your presents. Jesus. But he does get a bonus point for it being homemade.

This sexy little number is from Will and Laura. Will works for the Queen so he probably got this card for free. Very regal.

Open it up and what have you got? Only the best picture of 2011! There’s a picture of Will and Kate inside a card from Will and Laura. And I’m not even sure Will and Laura are aware of my infatuation with Will and Kate. Nor are Will and Kate, for that matter, but that’s probably for the best.

And finally, this beauty. It glitters, it’s specifically for a mother’s son and his fiancée, it’s got a swinging bit of gold stuff. It just sums up everything that’s classic about the art of card-giving. Paperchase may do velvet, but Clinton cards know how to do old-school sentiment.

All these cards will find themselves in my special box of memories come January. They’re splendid.

To send me a card and enter my competition (I’ll send a prize to the winner) (I probably won’t) you can attempt to better these. Here’s my address:

Kim Willis
C/o Paperchase HQ
England.

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Charm Offensive

After a day’s sightseeing in Bath, Gareth and I showing off to our London friends, Matt and Emma, just how much green and space and air and fun there is in Bath, we settled on some Yum Yum Thai for dinner.

Having been drinking since lunch time, we naturally ordered a hundred starters and a plate of duck meat each, plus a few bottles of their finest house white. We continued to talk and eat and drink and talk. Times were merry, fun was plentiful.





Somehow, the conversation found it’s way to mathematics. Like it does.

From what I recall, we were accusing Matt of being very good at mathematics and possibly even enjoying it. At that moment, a sweet little Chinese waitress came over to deliver the bill.

I know what you’re thinking – I was in a Thai restaurant, the waitress wasn’t Chinese. But you weren’t there. She was. There’s no rules.

Again, I’m fuzzy on how it happened, but the next thing I knew, I’d been informed by the waitress, who surprisingly wanted to engage with us despite our decibels in an otherwise peaceful dining establishment, that she too was very good at maths.

Right then. CONTEST.

Sober, I could probably have come up with a trickier multiplication. But the first thing that came to my head was: ‘Alright then, Matt, Waitress Lady, what is 22 x 22?’

Now I say that wasn’t very tricky, but even as I type this I’m going to have to get out the old po-cal (pocket calculator yo) and check the answer.

My poor old Dad. All he ever wanted was a maths genius for a daughter. He tried to explain to me a dozen times (a maths term for him there) simple equations for doing multiple mathematics in one’s head. Divide one number, double the other, carry the ten, THINK, WOMAN, THINK! But in my fear of disappointing him, my brain would go into panic mode and literally start melting while I began spurting out my two times table in the vain hope it would impress him. It didn't.

Whenever I have to do maths now, my palms sweat. But I can still dish it out in Thai restaurants to other people, be they strangers or friends.

So where were we? 22 x 22, come on!

Matt looks skyward for a second, his brain doing a little multiply all over it’s own frontal lobe.

Our waitress, on the other very impressive hand, needed no such second. Within an instant, without even a flicker of hesitation, she said ‘484.’

Now, like all good judges, I got my iphone out to check she wasn’t banking on my being too drunk to know if she was right.

And by jove, she only bloody was right.

Suitably impressed, we asked her how she did it. ‘In China, we’re not allowed calculators, we have to learn how to do mathematics quickly, in our heads.’

Wow, that’s some pretty impressive education. Although I guess it meant she missed out on what we all know happens if you type 5318008 into your Casio.

She left the table and we returned to poking fun at Matt for being so stupid at maths he took a split second too long to work it out and got beaten by a girl.

Packing up to leave, we did as all good dinner parties do and discussed the tip.

Inebriated, we decided our waitress would love it if we left her £4.84

But, the worry was, what if she just scooped it up without realising what a meaningful tip it was? That would be a calamity. We didn’t want her to think it was just lose shrapnel. This tip had meaning. It was probably going to be her most meaningful tip of the night, we couldn’t leave unsure as to whether or not she’d notice it after we’d gone.

‘Don’t worry guys, leave it to me,’ I said, putting on my jacket. I do love making speeches, even to an audience of one.

On our way out, I went over to our waitress and said, with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop: 'Excuse me, sorry to interrupt, just wanted to say thanks ever so much for the dinner and the mathematics. We’ve left you a very special present on the table.’

Confident that I was probably the best person in the room at that moment, I patted her on what may have been her head but was intended to be her shoulders, she was very short, and walked out. I think I might have even tried to wink at her.

A few steps from the restaurant old Maths Whizz Matt stumbles upon another great mathematical moment.

‘£4.84, while amusing and in reference to her impressive calculative skills, was less than a 5% tip. She probably would have preferred it if we’d just given her a decent tip.’

Good work Matt. There was I, Mother Teresa, dishing out donations, speeches and winks, and it takes you five minutes to work that out? I take no responsibility for it myself – my palms were already sweating at the thought.

ENDS

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How not to win friends...

I used to like Noah and the Whale, then everyone got wind of what a great little band they were, which put me off somewhat. When one discovers something special, one hopes one can keep the gift a secret from the masses. The last thing I’d want is to like a song at Number One. I’ve got a reputation to uphold here.

(Having said that, I do love Cheryl Cole and I’m not ashamed to say it. Although I think that says more about her hair extensions than her singing.)





Anyway, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. His name is John Robins and one day, when he’s Michael-McIntyre-famous, a stadium sell out mega star, remember that you heard it here first. I liked him back when he compering gigs in Bristol pubs, a comedy whippersnapper.

Cesca (my best mate and his number two fan) and I developed a bit of a crush on JR at the last gig we saw of his a few months back. He’s a local Bristol comedian, so I’ve seen his star rise for a few years now. Indeed once, while hydrated by the intoxicating confidence booster that is gin, I told him post-gig that I loved him and backed him into a corner, literally, while Gareth tried in vain to let him know that when I said I loved him what I meant was, he was highly amusing. Sometimes I get the two mixed up. Because I don’t actually love him, obvs, I’m a loyally engaged woman*, but I do think he’s a very funny man, and funny is attractive. Just look at how well James Corden does for himself. It’s not the belly women are going for, it’s the funny.

*Ryan Gosling would make me reconsider this statement. But Gareth agrees, so that's fine.


Cesca and I were very excited about seeing John Robins again on Friday night at the Hen and Chickens, our local comedy box. We’d both stalked him on Facebook, I’d even gone so far as to befriend him - then sent Cesca a victory screenshot to prove it.

Then I’d cashed in on the fact my sister runs a comedy night by casually mentioning it to him via the safe-stalk which is Facebook. (Hey man, he let us be friends, it’s legal.) It was a low ebb, but what’s a girl to do? JR is the kind of comedian that you sort of feel is your friend. He’s just one of your mates, up on stage, being funny. I have to remind myself that John and I are not actual friends, try as I might. I really ought not even refer to him as John, so casual and familiar as that is. 'Mr Robins' would be more appropriate.

Fast forward to Friday night, and due to my penchant for falling asleep at comedy nights, I have recently made the bold decision not to drink during comedy gigs. The combination of gin, a dimly lit room and a stuffy lack of oxygen, meant even the front row wasn’t a guarantee that I wouldn’t head-nod. See Russell Kane, Lee Evans and Micky Flanagan for examples. I’m like a budgie with a cloth over the cage. Sobriety was an investment in my consciousness.

But, it makes for a slightly less gobby, less confident Kim. Old JR might have been slightly confused that the girl who last time pinned him up against the wall with the force of my banter alone and got so excited when he asked my friends and I if we’d like to join him for pizza that I nearly broke a glass was now too shy to even look him in the eye. (The pizza invite really did happen, I’m not dreaming. Friends did not let me accept the offer, for fear I’d make a tit of myself. I liked them less after that. Stupid friends looking out for me, ruining my chances of being friends with a funny person / making a fool of myself. How dare they.)

Cesca and I were embarrassingly early to the gig on Friday. We even beat the bar staff to the door. At least we had Gareth with us, so I didn’t look too insane. ‘John Robins, John Robins, look, your favourite fans are here, but we’re not mental, we’ve got boyfriends,’ was the kind of message we wanted to get across. Gareth was my token insurance of sanity. Crazy stalkers don’t have boyfriends, JR! Be friends with us!

From said front row seat, I did not fall asleep, hurray, what an achievement. However I was in his direct line of sight when he announced that, sorry ladies, he now had a girlfriend. Bit awkward. But I still think he’s one of the best comedians alive today / love him very much. The line is blurred.

Anyone a fan of Flight of the Concords? That's me. Crazy stalker lady. Husband in tow.

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Girl in a Gold Bricked House

I can be something of an abandoned puppy when Gareth gets called last minute for jobs and leaves me at a loose end. I spend too much time not speaking and then when he returns and I hear his key turn in the lock, I sprint to the door, excitedly chasing my tail and pawing him for attention before he's even had a chance to put his bags down.

Having been left with little ado on Friday night, I was dying to get out and have some fun come Saturday, when he finally got home. We'd been invited out to a friend's birthday party in the snazzy Goldbrick House, Bristol, and I had my glad rags on at the ready.

Perhaps because I'd been a good girl on Friday night and abstained, I went a bit crazy bananas on Saturday night, as if I somehow had license to drink twice as much. And so it was that we'd had too much gin before we'd even arrived at the party. A party at which there were about 40 people, and we knew three. A party at which when we arrived, Gareth declared loudly 'Tom's got a lot of friends,' drawing attention to himself just as he tripped over his own shoelaces, hurtling into a stranger and coming within an inch of colliding with a tray of fancy wine glasses. What an entrance.

It quickly became apparent that Gareth and I were on rather more exuberant form than was in keeping with 8pm in a posh establishment like Goldbrick House, and so should perhaps have had a few soft drinks in order to get in line with the rest of the party.

Instead we continued to drink gin and were hugely disappointed when the party finished and no one wanted to go to a casino and risk their life savings on roulette.

As the party disbanded, Gareth and I made our way back to the clever place we'd earlier parked our camper van, Eddie, all the while congratulating ourselves on how much money we'd saved by bringing our second home and sleeping roadside, rather than paying for a taxi home. We passed the Lizard Lounge, a meat market with a queue of men dressed in togas (because they're absolutely mental) and women wearing clothes I will not be letting my daughter out in. We quickly sobered up. Ah yes, I remember my place in society now. I'm getting on a bit. Young, loutish behaviour annoys me. People dressed in 'fun' clothes. Students. Kebab vans. High heels. Doormen. Chips. Vomit on the pavement. Men in Ben Sherman shirts drenched in Lynx. Shivering women who refuse to wear coats because they Must. Not. Hide. Cleavage. All very annoying.

We got back to Eddie ready for a cosy night and realised we had a) parked on a hill and b) parked outside a nightclub. Great work.

Gareth then proudly got out his pre-prepared empty water bottle. Like a boy scout with a bladder problem he had already cut the top off for easy peeing. He did a wee next to my face and then, lying almost upright, we drifted off to the sound of tomorrow's graduates vomiting, arguing and having sex. The soundtrack to Bristol on a Saturday night. It was very romantic.

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Still Got It...

My best friendship grew from a womb of white wine and poppers. It was born into a loving home of Friday nights that became Saturday mornings, of charging around festivals and congratulating each other on our successful love child – fun. Fun, our baby, grew bigger and better with every passing year. We were very good at fun. If I close my eyes and think back on all the fun we’ve had, moment upon moment of mischievousness, snogging and secret meetings in bath tubs (where we discussed the merits of opening another bottle) fill my mind. Because my best friend and I knew how to party. We were experts.

Yes, there were the bad times too – we’re not just good-time friends. She’s my go-to bird in times of distress and calamity. She’s my soul sister.

But this isn’t about the hard times. It’s about the fun.

The early days of our friendship were a heady whirlwind of hedonism. I don’t know where we put it, but my god did we put it away. One evening, for example, my best friend and I arrived at a pub called the Severn Shed, of Bristol, for a glass of wine. It’s actually more of a really posh restaurant, but for us it was to serve one purpose and one purpose only – wine guzzling.

‘Why don’t we go on a pub crawl and have a glass of wine in each pub?’ Cesca asked, flagging down the handsome wine servant.

‘How about a bottle in each pub?’ I said. We did so love to up the ante.

Fast forward eight pubs and eight bottles and I had made friends with some identical twin men, but could not remember which one I was snogging, while Cesca was blazing a trail of destruction, knocking over entire tables of beer while articulating what was no doubt a really good point. We left many broken glasses and broken hearts in our wake.

That was about six years ago. Cesca has just celebrated her 29th birthday and things are a bit quieter these days. She’s married, I’m engaged, we don’t live together anymore, we try not to drink as heavily. We go to yoga classes and at a festival this summer, it pains me to admit we didn’t even get drunk on the Sunday night. My goodness. The gods of fun were looking down upon us with thunder in their eyes. We were disappointing them and I knew it.

So I invited Cesca on a birthday date. We would go back to the Severn Shed and see if, six years on, we could still have as much fun. It was a loaded invitation – neither of us want to get boring, neither of us want to admit we’re not as mad cap as we once were. We had something to prove to ourselves. Or at least, I did. Cesca is probably much more at peace with sobriety than I am.

We arrived and refused to even look at the menu until we’d polished off a bottle of champagne. Two stark differences to six years ago already – 1) this time we ate and 2) this time we looked at the wine list and picked a posh champagne. Last time was more an eating’s cheating philosophy, barking orders for a bottle of the finest house white.

We mostly talked about our weddings. Cesca, the wise old sage, has had one, so could bestow upon me advice and caution. I am gearing up to mine and so wish to talk about little else and Cesca is one of few people I don’t feel guilty banging on about it to. She took that one for the team when she accepted the role of Chief Bridesmaid.

The wine flowed, so we’re still fun. But did we snog any twins? Did we go on a pub crawl? No, we decided that if fate would have a taxi passing by just as we left, we'd get in and go home. And there was one, so we did.

But wait – before you give up on us, writing us off as past it and better suited to the Women’s Institute than the Institute of Advanced Fun, we weren’t in our slippers drinking hot chocolate by midnight. We stopped off at Cesca’s local for a nightcap.

Here we were served our booze in a brilliant glass. The kind you want in your glass cupboard. The kind my magpie eyes soon had in their sights. The kind to steal, yes.

Now, I’m not proud of it, but back in the day I was a glass thief. Alcohol made me do it. And tonight was no exception. I declared that if we were to be even a patch on our younger selves, we better steal those glasses and run home wildy.

So we did. We even escaped through a gap in the hedge in the pub garden, Jack Bauer style, so as not to have to walk the walk of shame through the pub. I think I might have even done a roly poly.

Job done, I say. We’re still cool.

The next day I got a text message from my best friend, the former hell raiser.

‘Thanks for a great night. I’ve just taken the glasses back to the pub. Luckily they saw the funny side.’

That’s right. Where once we were hooligans, thieves and trouble makers, now, we dutifully return stolen goods the next day and order nice wine over dinner.

Now would be the time to make a poetic point about how much richer our lives are these days. We're older and wiser. We had something missing from our souls before, and alcohol filled that void. Balderdash! Allow me to pimp out Cesca for a night on the tiles with you and you'll soon see what all the fuss is about. If I could have my way our full time jobs would be to party together.

But as we reluctantly enter the next chapter of our lives, with fine wines, productive Saturdays and god, maybe even children, at least we can be safe in the knowledge that we had more than our fair share of fun.

And just to keep the spice alive, I’ll be encouraging my kids to steal glasses from pubs but Auntie Cesca will be allowed to return them. After all, there is fun, and then there is just plain stealing.

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