Rock and Roll

Something happens when you get a little older in this day and age. You worry - panic, really - that you're not rock and roll anymore. You find that wild nights out have been replaced by the occasional pub quiz or watching films at the house of a friend with a pizza. On the odd occasion when you do go to a club you end up standing in a dark, dingy corner with a bottle of warm beer wondering what everyone else is drinking that makes them enjoy themselves. You wait hours for your younger friends to stop dancing, and then trudge out to the street to hail a cab.

Putting on socks has become a three-step operation. You make noises when you get up from a chair.

You get nose hair.

But not this weekend.

We were rock and roll.

Rock.

And.

Roll.

But... the rock and roll soon runs out. See, parking in the hotel car park cost 10 quid a day and, skinflint that I am, I parked on a meter down the street. I had to move the car Monday morning before 8am, so after about 10 pints and around 4 hours sleep I ended up driving through endless one-way systems in the narrow streets of York, probably unfit to drive. Total cost for the night's parking? About 11 quid. Bugger. After that we had another night even crazier than the first, and slumped into bed a few hours before we had to check out. This morning was - there are no better words for it - bad. We sat in a cafe drinking hot chocolate and cappuccino, nursing our heads before the long drive home - via Huddersfield to drop one of our number home. We'd all drunk about 3 gallons of lager over 30 hours, so the ride home was somber to say the least.

I got home around lunchtime and collapsed into bed. Around 7:30pm I got a call from my brother - he'd missed his bus after work and needed a ride to the pub to watch Manchester United in the Champions League. I stopped with him to watch the game and was almost killed by a single pint of lager. I think I've become allergic.

And here's the moral of the tale. Rock and roll is finite.

Time for bed. Just give me a few minutes to take off my socks.