Roses are red, we like Becks Blue, Tryers to be Dryers push on through. 2019 will be our Valentine.

[Frouby]

Thread 4 for support, tips, tricks and friendship as we reduce our alcohol intake even more. For anyone who wants to reduce, stop, moderate or even just track their drinking.

Absolutely no judgement, just support. Everyone welcome.

Previous threads somewhere but am rubbish at clicky links.

Old tryers and new dryers, welcome to our thread. The one that starts in February and will see us all hit our goals as we move forwards.

Flossie, so sorry to hear about yesterday. What a fucking shower. Sending you all the hugs.

Frouby I have bird flu too. So snotty! Have cancelled drinks out as friend is the same but will have medicinal wine in.

On the plus side I am in the park with the kids. It’s nearly 6 and still not quite murderer level dark.

I am also away tomorrow and also in a youth hostel. I shall look out for you NC4! Not quite sure what I will be doing with myself as was supposed to be bright wintry walks by the sea but it’s due to piss it down

Longest and Frouby - Sorry to hear you are both sick. Didn’t realise bird flu was still around - nasty! Hope you get better soon.

Canshop, that makes two of us. Sigh.

Frouby, I am sorry about the bird flu. Likewise, Longest. And a youth hostel? Surely that is a reason in itself to drink?

In fact, Frouby, I thought of you earlier as I was on a train in your neck of the woods .

NC4, I think 'Help The Aged' might just about sum up my relationship history.

Not dry, needless to say, as I have no excuse at all. DD is twittering at me about needing a Special (aka expensive) bra, as she was measured today. I think she should be generous, and share her assets as I have none. Then we would both be #winningatlife

Flossie, I'm glad you are having a weekend away. Sod everything else. xxx

I am all about the youth hostels Dion! It's like camping but you get walls and a bed and everything! They are a bit of a mixed bag though. The one in the Lake District was fabulously cosy and wholesome. The one in Oxford was a bit more scummy and smelled like the school gym. I am a right tightwad about accommodation though. Can't really stomach paying £100s for loan of a bedroom. It's a bit like Travelodge though. Sometimes they're a bargain and sometimes unjustifiably expensive.

DDs have picked their book Day costumes. Dd1 is Dotty the Detective which basically involves spotty clothes (we have loads), sunglasses, magnifying glass and toy dog. Dd2 is singing mermaid which is mermaid blanket thing we have already, swimming costume (what do you mean shell freeze? she has hardy northern genes) and flower hairband stolen from Dd1. No sewing or paper mache or even posting seriously optimistic posts on local Facebook group
required (today I saw " does anyone have a giraffe costume to fit a five year old?) #winning.

Went out for lunch with DH who was working from home. Was nice. Was AF. Drinking wine now though.

Ps I totally love Pulp. Saw them aged 16 and again a couple of years ago when Jarvis randomly showed up at a nerdy folk gig I was at and sang babies. Was fabulous.

Longest, I think I am glad mine are too old for World Book Days. Am now wondering about YH holidays, though, as we haven't been on any kind of holiday since 2012. I saw Pulp at Manchester Arena about 20 years ago, as a present from my ex BF. They were fab. As for Babies: I'm having a bit of a nostalgia trip now. Pink Dress is the one for me.

To be honest for a full week you might find a better value flat somewhere. They are good for the odd night though. We paid £35 for a family room. Ok we were sleeping in bunkbeds but I've laid similar for a camping pitch (ok I moaned a lot about that,)

Absolutely adore Pulp.

I saw Jarvis Cocker once at a wedding in about 97/98. He sniffed a bit of cheese board in his wanky mac and totally rocked it. We had 'Something Changed'to sign our register to when we got married but my favourite is Acrylic Afternoons. It reminds me of being young and in love and naively thinking everything would be chocolate boxes and roses. My 2nd favourite is Feeling called love (can't be arsed with the full stops). That whole album is full of so many memories. I regularly tell Alexa to play Pulp and sit and work for hours with JC being young and earnest and pained and ironic in the background.

And speaking of ironic has anyone listened to Alanis Morrisete Jagged little pill lately? I put it on the other day, that girl was annoyed but had a point.

Dd is annoying me. They can have anything they want on a Friday night. There is taco bell, kfc, chip shop,noodle bar, subway, dominos, thai place and spar across the road open right now. She wanted dominos but me to order it. Said she should order it herself. She didn't want to.

So she went and got ds kfc and is now passively aggressively making jam on toast.

Sigh. Friday night is my night off. She made advocado on toast earlier as that is apparently an acceptable after school snack. I keep reminding her we are wc northern folk and advo on toast is not an acceptable snack and she should be grateful for a pack of wotsits and a penguin.

So she wasn't actually that hungry and has now stomped upstairs to eat jam on toast. Fml.

I want to live like common people.
I want to do whatever common people do.

Now have Pulp on Spotify!!

DD is in a strop about who knows what, but it seems to involve bras, and the fact that macaroni cheese is inedible, unless the pasta is actual macroni. Which really makes a difference to how it tastes.

FML.

Now need to ring DS, as my evening is not good enough as it is.

All nostalgic now about seeing Pulp at Glastonbury on telly about 20 years ago, Frouby. If I'd seen Jarvis Cocker sniffing cheese, I'd probably have spontaneously combusted.

Longest, I will next go on holiday in about 2020 when the DC have left school/university. Sadly.

Fuck - I mean 2030...

How can it actually be 2019? I remember when Disco 2000 was about the actual future. We are supposed to be all using flying cars and hoverboards by now.

I nearly did Dion. I was doing my a levels at the time and working in a local pub, had just split up with my first ever proper boyfriend as I kept getting chatted up over the bar by the local bad boys and my head was turned. Especially when I was ones plus 1 at his cousins wedding and JC turned up. Benefit of being just outside Sheffield. You get to meet the stars. Jarvis Cocker, Sean Bean, the chuckle brothers, paul shane..... (had a school dinner with Paul Shane when I was 12. He was a right mardy fucker and had 2 puddings 😂😂😂).

Serious boyfriend kept picking me up in his mams Peugot 405 and playing Simply Red and Celine Dion (that one that goes Don't Say What Your About To Say No No No) and the local bad lads were putting Pulp and Oasis and Stone Roses on when the pub was locked up and we were doing afters. And were cool as fuck while my then boyfriend was not cool as fuck. Bless him.

Bought a house with one of them in the end. It lasted less time than the 2 year discount we got on the mortgage. Twat couldn't get out of bed for work, liked nights out too much. Then when we split he went and signed up for the RAF and did time in Sarajevo and Kosovo. Bet the fucker wasn't late for work then. But if he had been blown up everyone would have blamed me for driving him to it for surpressing his inner child.

He wasn't the most motivated of men. It took him 14 months to finish unpacking. By the time he'd done I was packing his football league trophies, porn collection and The Doors back catalogue back up 😂😂😂.

Apparently I was a ball breaking bitch.

He shoulda done his due dilligence .

Boring ex boyfriend is now in the local police. I didn't know this until my mil passed away very suddenly at home. Dh and fil were inconsolable. I was doing the official bit and gave the statement thing to my boyfriend from aged 16 to 18. Awkward really. Especially as all I had running through my head was Simply Red Stars album and wondering if his brother still smoked weed at the bottom of the garden. And if his dad still had his pin badge collection in the garage. Bless him.

Love that Frouby. I always went for the bad boys (look where it’s got me) and still have dreams about Ian Brown.
Lots of razzing round in XR3is, chain smoking Marlboro reds.
That Pulp album His n Hers reminds me of hitch hiking in the Chamonix valley aged 17 after going to a ‘techno picnic’ in a disused farmhouse. Me and my friend had got the bus from up north to the south of France to see another mate who was working down there and had stayed up for about 72 hours straight. Her boyfriend hitchhiked down because he couldn’t afford the bus ticket.
She bought that album and a bottle of Eden perfume on the ferry and we lay on the grass outside their chalet listening to it for about 10 days.

Dion I’ve bought me and DS some flights to Barca for £80 each this summer. I’ll look at accommodation nearer the time but if I’m skint we’ll YHA it.

Frouby I've just spat my tea out reading your story about your first boyfriend and the waster from the RAF. I would have packed his bags too, can't stand laziness. My first boyfriend had an orange escort with black go faster stripes. Needless to say it didn't go fast but at least I didn't have to walk or cycle miles into town to go out (I lived in a village in the countryside).
Longest Dion I think youth hostels are very luxurious compared to the old ones where you shared a dormitory with a hundred other people. Although some aren't as cheap as they were as a result.
DS birthday yesterday (12) so celebrated by drinking a bottle of wine with DP and rather regretting it now as up early to take DS to an athletics competition.

Bless my waster, he had a heart of gold, was very good company and was a lovely lad. Just wanted another mum which I wasn't prepared to be. I worked in a bank at the time. Used to leave at 7.30am to get 2 buses to get to work, then not get home while 6.30ish. He used to get picked up at 8am for work, be home for 5.30pm and sit and wait for me to get home and make his tea. I was only 19 at the time, the novelty wore off after about 4 days of that shit.

Then until I moved 7 years later he would randomly knock on my door at 2am and shout up to the bedroom window that he had forgot his key. He genuinely used to think he still lived there. A few times he was most perturbed if a new boyfriend opened the door. One particularly long lasting boyfriend actually made friends with him and used to let him in and phone him a taxi and offer him a beer 😂😂😂. Fml. Current boyfriend and ex boyfriend sat chatting about football on my fucking settee was funny for about no times.

Just back from a party with ds. 30 5 year olds trampolining for 2 hours made me thirsty. Still feel shocking, have a big old viral rash up my tummy, boobs and chest and am sneezing like Miss PopOff. So obviously have washed 2 ibuprofen down with a naice glass of pinot grigio.

Went to Tesco earlier for a birthday card and tea for tonight and thought I was going to keel over so couldn't face doing any shopping so left with birthday card and a crate of Carling for dh, so dominoes for tea.

I deserve to be fat 🙈.

Oh, what a lot of lovelies you are. Frouby, I love your stories. You really should start a Frouby Household Blog.

Completely and utterly not dry. Have felt lousy all day. Headache, etc. Have experimentally had a small amount of Martini (honestly. Not). Now I feel great. FML, FML, FML.

I have such a boring boyfriend history. I was such a good teenager. Didn't touch a drop of alcohol until I was about 21 (now wishing I had never bothered). No hitchhiking. No nothing. No bad boys at all. Just two posh boys. I married one. DP is the other. I spawned a third. What a saddo I am.

I am a saddo too Dion. I married my first boyfriend! I don't think anyone would call him a bad boy either, he's more of a mid ranking civil servant type, though he has his rebellious moments. He's a grumpy sod on the whole but I still find him quite sexy, I somehow seem to be stuck with him!

Youth hostel is fine. Is bloody freezing out but beach and harbour is nice. We managed about an hour of braving sandcastle building before taking shelter in the arcades. Dd2 is asleep. Dd1 is being a pain, swinging on the bunk beds like monkey bars and it's way past her bedtime. I have nearly finished the wine.

I'm 53 and have had lots of boyfriends but never had a relationship for longer than 9 years. That was with the father of my children and it only lasted that long because I live in France, he was in England and we only saw each other every 3 weeks.

I was with my boys’ dad for 9 years. We met at a rave in 1998. We had the absolute best time. There were some dark times in the later years but we’re back to being good mates again now. He’s family and always will be.
My boyfriend before him was a New Age traveller. 😳
I’d love a boyfriend now. I go on dates sometimes but I never seem to feel that spark, excitement and vulnerability of genuinely wanting someone and them wanting you. I wonder if I’ve just become defensive, or if all the single blokes are socially inept, or if I’ve had all the excitement I’m going to get for one lifetime.
I’ve had some brilliant relationships that didn’t work out. That’s what I’m chasing. The love.

Anglais that sounds like a perfect relationship to me.

Dh is my longest relationship by far. Nearly 13 years together. But have known him over 20.

RAF waster was 2.5 years. Boring first boyfriend 2 years. Then lots of short relationships that were lots and lots of fun. Ranging from ONS to 3 or 4 months and a few longer term FWB type relationships. My 20s were amazing.

If I was ever single again I wouldn't want a serious relationship. I would want FWB to go for dinner, dtd and then go home in the morning until I next contacted them 😁.

Day 1 today.

I'm jealous of your 20s, Frouby. Mine were spent being grown up with XH and then by being even more grown up and having babies with him. I didn't want to have babies with him particularly, but I wanted to have babies with someone, and I was trapped with him by that point. FML.

Longest, YH sounds fab.

Day One for me, too. I can't remember when I last managed a Day One. I had a sleeping pill last night (I have some for emergency purposes, but so few that I can only take one about once every six months). So I slept for 10 hours and could now sleep for another 10. I was just so fed up with having 4 hours followed by Beer Fear.

Obviously, the other and more sensible way around this would be not to drink.

I tried being grown up with RAF man and didn't like it very much Dion. I had a blast but also was pg by 27 with dd, then a single parent for 2 years so the end of my 20s was very different to the beginning and middle. And now I am 41 and have a 5 year old so another 13 years at least of school runs and being a grown up so being grown up early does have it's advantages as you get to be irresponsible sooner.

Just done an aldi big shop and put it all away. Fml hate shopping with dh and ds who both insisted on coming to 'help'. Just having a coffee then contemplating the ironing pile that DH is not wanting to do. Supposed to be his job but he's got the bug I had last week (and still have but feel a bit better today). If I do the ironing I can watch shitty tv while I do it rather than whatever crap dh wants on when he's back from the allotment.

Hows the MB doing? Get skybet done this week if nothing else, £20 risk free for Cheltenham festival every day on first race, thats £70 profit for 15 mins work a day!

Hi 👋 struggling at the moment, under lots of stress with ass hole ex, really wanting to drink. Have slipped and had a couple over the last week but I don't want it to get worse. Really want to stop for good but it's just so hard 😢

Frouby that’s my rationale. I was 25 when I had DS1. It was a bit of a shock to my hard partying lifestyle, but now I’m in my early 40s I have a lot more freedom than my friends who have toddlers.

Day one today. I’m determined to have a decent run at this week. Last week was a write off.