I probably had a good time, if only I could remember it

I had a day out with friends on Saturday, to drink and eat food. It was a great day – we ate and we drank, and we drank a little more – but I learned a harsh lesson: I shouldn’t drink.

Now to you this may not seem worth writing about, but to me – the father of a seven and five-year-old who have more hectic social calendars than a politician in the midst of a general election campaign (and thus my entire life is spent either dropping them at or collecting them from various locations around town) – a day out with friends is as rare as discovering beef in a Linda McCartney ready meal.

My pals and I met at about 4 in the afternoon with the plan to get the latenight train home.

Our mistake, with hindsight, was having three quick pints in the first pub. I remember glancing at my watch at 5.15pm and having to really focus hard because the 5s and the 1 seemed to be moving.

We definitely had tapas at a restaurant at some point (I know this because I remember thinking the waiter hadn’t showered recently), and I also recall – with surprising clarity – ordering four drinks at a trendy bar and the bartender saying, ‘that’ll be £36 please’, to which I coughed violently and asked if he’d charged me for everybody else’s drinks in the venue too by mistake.

The rest is a blur, though one thing I definitely know is that for the final hour of the evening I couldn’t seem to pronounce my words properly. Every time I tried to say something, it sounded like I was speaking fluent Russian.

Texting was equally tricky.

I sent a message to Mrs Canavan late on telling her I would be home in the next hour or so. She showed me the message the next morning and it read: ‘XTyhhs dff hom 1a woof ’.

I have no recollection whatsoever of the journey back, but Mrs Canavan tells me that, sometime shortly after 1am, I burst into the bedroom, switched the lights on, and shouted ‘I’m HOME!’

I regret to say that I didn’t manage to get out of bed till 3 o’clock the next afternoon, other than a brief excursion to the lavatory at 10am to vomit.

It wasn’t until late the next evening

– and six headache tablets later – that I finally began to feel slightly back to my usual self, though thankfully Mrs Canavan was very sympathetic and only mentioned eight times that I hadn’t made it out of bed to watch Mary’s Sunday morning football game, a big semi-final I’d promised to attend.

Lesson learned – no more drink for me. Until next time, obviously.