Drunk and Disorderly

The next training session was a walk from Lodge Moor on the outskirts of Sheffield over Stanage Edge to Hathersage in the Peak District. I got the train to Sheffield and walked up to my sister Deb’s (aka Che) place. She’s Che because I had a Che Guevara T shirt in the 60’s and she nicked it and wore it so much that folk called her Che. She couldn’t wear it now due to slight expansion in the arse and belly departments but nothing too drastic.

The three of us me, Che and her dog, got a bus up to Lodge Moor and set off to walk over to Stanage via Wyming Brook and Rivelin. It bucketed it down and to say I was not sufficiently prepared would be an understatement. I got soaked as did Che and pooch. We struggled on for a bit but it was getting worse and wetter so we turned back to Lodge Moor and The Three Merry Lads, which looked inviting in the bleak surroundings.

There’s a long-standing family connection which I was unaware of that my paternal grandfather supped here when the family lived at Ringinglow over the moors and in very poor conditions in the city centre.

We felt the warmth of the welcome with a sign indicating that a single brandy was £2.60 and a double was only £2.00. We drank a bit and had a laugh before getting the bus down town and carrying on drinking in the Grapes on Trippet Lane. To tell the truth I don’t drink spirits much and I got well oiled.  Che walked with me down to the station where I’d arranged to meet my daughter Juliet, who looked horrified to see me. She helped me to the train as I tripped a few times and fell asleep next to an old dear in an aisle seat, opposite one of Juliet’s University chums. Jet told her mate I’d been to a party – it was 5.30 in the afternoon.

Maggie picked us up at Leeds station and dropped off Jet at her boyfriend’s place before getting frustrated with me being drunk and obnoxious and chucking me out of the car. I was still sozzled with no money (I’d left it in my rucksack in the car when I huffed off) and five miles from home. I stumbled into the night through Hyde Park to the Hyde Park pub and off down Melville Road and up through Buslingthorpe Lane to Scott Hall Road. It might not mean owt to out of towners but in the dark these places can be quite intimidating to the faint-hearted and as a staggering late middle-aged man I would represent a helpless victim. Doesn’t it brass you off that when you’ve had a few the pavement moves up and down? You step down much further than you thought it was, and stumble forward, or the pavement zooms up to meet your foot, and you fall back a bit. I had my German penknife in my pocket that the German MD gave me at my leaving do last year so I felt confident. A ridiculous old fart in a ridiculous state with a ridiculous sense of invulnerability.

Meanwhile Maggie had felt sorry for me and was combing the streets in the car, looking for a stumbling bundle of drunkenness. She didn’t find me, neither did Georgie and Adam who also drove around on lookout duty. I got home and tried to keep my dignity. Long lost at the bottom of a bottle.