The pain and the sorrow.

I say, rather close isn't he?

A weekend very much of two halves.

Uncharacteristically I awoke when Da-Lodga returned from yet another night sweating away the last of her youthful looks in one of London's louder establishments.
Full of vim, vigour and verisimilitude I at once decided to aviate.
Now, students of all things metero metroli weather will have noticed the whopping great slice of High pressure resident over Merrie Englande.

This still, pleasant autumn weather, whilst stunning, has killed off the thermal soaring. It's all to do with inversions, and is terribly complicated and will involve graphs to explain.

As the air was so still and smooth it would perfect for some formation flying. Therefore, I took the opportunity to renew my rating on solo-aerotowing.

Aerotowing is basically formation flying, whilst being dragged through the sky by a tug on the end of a bit of long string.

I shall spare you the details - but in terms of the beauty of the day (Cambridgeshire was breathtaking in the Autumn light) and the sense of achievement - I rated it better than my first solo - or first successful climb to cloud base solo.

I landed after enjoying myself thoroughly at two thousand feet and skipped about the peri-track like a spring lamb, filled with enthusiasm and a sense of complacent joy at just how bloody brilliant I am.

It was in this sense of tearing high spirits that I wended my weary way to 'Sarf' London to chums of mine for a spot of an Ibiza reunion with a certain Rugby match in for good measure.

You can see where this is going can't you.

A couple of bottles of bubbles, some cheeky Rhone and a half decent curry later we had become refreshed to the extent that going to the pub with requisite loud funk disco had become a reasonable suggestion and one that we embarked on with notable alacrity. Certainly a journey worthy of allowing us to forget the horrors from Paris.

It is very easy to criticise one's actions viewed through the prism of sober hindsight:

We shouldn't have gone to the pub at 11.

I shouldn't have had that strong Czech lager on top of fizz and red wine

I shouldn't have been involved in Donna-Da-Lodga's mad photography attempts to persuade us gentlemen to behave like celebutards for a camera.

Dancing. (Needs no qualifications whatsoever, does it...)

Nor should I have drunk quite so much (and the rest!)

What is worse, is that there are apparently photos of this debauched behaviour in existence as we speak. (Fortunately, they are restricted to a generic social networking website belonging to DDL - and therefore almost nobody I know will ever see them)

But dear reader - as you are all aware Nemesis always follows Hubris.

My Sunday was spent the clutches of a hangover of transdimensional qualities.

It crept up - I felt fine for an hour when I awoke. (No memory as to how I got to bed either - for the concoctions which had rendered me so cheerful and willing to participate in dancing, had also contrived to rob me of my memory of some minor details - like getting home, what I did for an hour with everyone else - and who I may have drunk-dialled on the wireless telephone).

And then, when I started some gentle re-hydration therapy, it hit. And it struck as fast and as hard as an Exocet out of a cloudbank. I have had similar experiences, normally when experimenting with cheap drugs when I was int he flower of my youth.

My day? Ruined.

My head? Aswim.

My Gulliver? On spin cycle.

A poor end to such an auspicious start.

The only consolation was that this hurt more than the defeat. So, I guess in someways the sorrows had been most effectively drowned.