Just peachy!

I read a good article in Red magazine yesterday, entitled ‘Is drinking the new smoking?’

Firstly, I really ought to give up my addiction to women’s magazines, but try as I might, they sort of jump off the shelves of WHSmith, and chase me across the concourse at Charing X, so that I feel honour bound to buy them! It started when I worked at L’Oreal and part of my job was checking the magazines and approving all our ads. The range was huge – from Heat to Saga magazine and I even started reading Reader’s Digest at the time – hmm, marking my move into middle-age I imagine! Anyway, I may have stopped all the others but somehow Red is a habit I have failed to break and if nothing else, it can be considered my guilty pleasure (along with Zest, Time Out, The Economist etc etc. Oh damn it ‘my name is Ilona and I am a magazinaholic!!’)

Anyway, enough on that subject. The crux of the article mentioned above is that being teetotal is the new black. Yep, when it became taboo to smoke and all the puffers were forced out onto balconies and patios, no-one considered that the next potentially anti-social habit would end up being a glass of el vino. I have considered how I fit into the new puritan circle and am not convinced that I’ve made that leap of faith just yet. True, I am abstaining, but in a purely self-centred and in some ways independent fashion. I have told everyone I have met since giving up that I have no truck with them imbibing and haven’t turned down a social event based on alcohol being consumed. I have sipped my fizzy water and not even been tempted to sniff a glass of red and have, in my mind, been more entertaining and in control than if I’d had a few glasses. Question is, would my friends agree? Would they instead say that sitting opposite someone being so pious and precious is as much of a turn-off as if I were preaching the evils of alcohol at them from a pulpit? I don’t dare ask, because heading down that road would be an encouragement for me to drink again and thus become my old self and be better company. On the other hand, I could be correct in my assumption that I am going about abstention in my own sweet and quiet way and that my social diary is not about to implode – ha ha!

However, one thing that I do know is an improvement, at least according to K, is my complexion. Such a lovely, old-fashioned word, that, and I smiled when he mentioned it at dinner the other eve. We still haven’t had a conversation about my non-drinking, as I suspect this time he has realised that I am keeping it to myself and is respecting that decision. We discuss it as if it were a given that I am no longer boozing, but without delving into the whys and wherefores. He told me that my skin was one of the things he praised after our first meeting, when his sister had asked him for a de-brief! Apparently, in his kind and gentle way, my skin was blotchy when I was over-indulging and is looking plump and dewy now! Ahh – bless him and his way with words.

The upshot is that looking better is definitely an incentive. I am 35 now and can’t mess about with these things any longer. An erratic beauty routine (from previously sleeping in make-up and being permanently dehydrated) won't help keep the crow’s feet at bay, that’s for sure. The 2 litres of water I am now knocking back at work is also helping and I am struggling to imagine what it was like before. I am permanently thirsty now, despite drenching myself with still and sparkling water, green and mint tea like they were all going out of fashion. It must work on the same principle as alcohol, cos the more I have the more I want - ha ha!

Actually, there is a Volvic advert doing the rounds at the moment with a smug, self-satisfied twat on it, which drives K to distraction every time it’s on. It will never, I repeat NEVER be cool and hip to drink water. Sensible and mature, yes, but for God's sake advertisers wake up to your bloody selves and stop trying to make us believe that a bit-part actor with an infantile haircut and a cheesy (read nauseating) grin is someone we want to aspire to. Bill Nighy, Frankie Boyle, Alastair Campbell, Billy Connolly or other reformed drinkers on the other hand, now they might make me wanna drink Volvic, if only cos I could aspire to being like some of my favourite totty!!!