Accidental Inebriation

I didn't have a single mouthful of cask ale yesterday, but still managed to get sozzled. Not by intent - I'm too old for that malarkey - but through circumstance. I don't normally meet any of my better half's colleagues, not through some kind of curmudgeonly avoidance, but by happenstance. London is a big place and I'm rarely there during the week. I therefore hadn't met her workmate Bob before when we arranged to join him for a snifter in the Captain Kidd, a riverside Sam's house on Wapping High Street.

Now the Captain Kidd is very pleasant despite selling keg beer only and on a glorious day, we bagged the prime seats beside two large open windows, looking out on a sparkling River Thames. My choice of beer was easy. Sam's brew a fine version of a German weiss bier, now divested of its Ayingerbrau connection, though it seems to me to be just the same. Bob joined us and it has to be said he likes an hour out. He drank the smooth bitter with practised ease, while E slid halves of Pure Brewed Lager down red lane. It was a great afternoon. After five pints of wheat beer for me and equivelant amounts for my companions, we were invited back to Bob's sumptuous flat in a converted warehouse overlooking the Thames. A couple of hours later and with two bottles of top class red inside us, we tottered off home.

The evening passed in a blur, though I did cook a perfectly acceptable spag bol.