This bottle of wine is fairly old: I opened it on New Year's Eve when I drank one small glass and gave a toast to the new year, after which I went to bed well before the fireworks started.
I have been taking no more than the occasional sip from it every few days since then. My heavy drinking days are well and truly behind me, although I still drank the odd glass on an almost weekly basis when a friend from up the road used to visit me. He liked his wine and I kept him company while we talked about "the good old days", his in Austria and mine in Germany, although we both knew that they hadn't been all that good, or why else did we bother to emigrate to far away Australia?
Then he shot himself - click here. He had been 85 years old and in poor health, so it couldn't have been the wine which we had always chosen carefully. Still, I can't help thinking of him whenever I lift my glass now.
On the rare occasion when I still drink, I drink to remember the many heavy drinkers I encountered during my career in far-off places, who drank to forget broken marriages or lost fortunes or abandoned dreams.
I hadn't got there yet, but now that I have tasted most of life's highs and woes, I have found my refuge in books and music and boring domesticity which, even though it's already lasted a quarter of a century, I still find hard to get used to at times. It is then that I pour myself a very small glass of wine to drink to all those whose only solace had been alcohol.
IN VINO VERITAS, or "A drunk person's words are their sober thoughts".
