This is what happens when you stop boozing. You lose all your points of reference. You're operating in a strange
demi-monde, peopled by strangers, different perspectives and ways of doing things. There I was, slicing a raw fennel with my latest acquisition from the market, a kitchen utensil with quite the sharpest blade in the Western hemisphere. One moment I was happily slicing, the next I was pulling the top of my thumb off the blade. Blood every-sodding-where. Showing unusual presence of mind, I stuck my thumb in my mouth and started sucking and then hunted for a piece of string (Mrs Combo was at work). No string so I cut the strap off the camera and tied that tight around the digit as a make-do tourniquet. Half a kitchen roll later Mrs C pitched up and took me to A&E. Such is my accident-prone nature that I am virtually on first name terms with the doctors and nurses. Three stitches and home. That'll learn me.
Well, the three months are up and it's time to have the blood tests again. I went to the doctor on Tuesday and got the prescription. So I could have gone yesterday, done the tests and then gone to the nearest bar and knocked back five Negroni. However because in my awful Protestant way I believe deferred gratification to be good for you and being almost certainly deranged because of profound alcohol deficit syndrome (PADS) I will not go for the tests this week which means even more days off the sauce. I am of course presuming that everything is tickety-boo with regard to the liver. If it is shot to bits even after all this abstention then it's time for the pearl-handled Beretta.
