1st of October and I, like many others, am giving up drink for the month. I'd planned this a few weeks ago, as I've got a charity run on the 1st Nov so wanted to do 31 days of daily training, alongside saving some money to pay for the hotel and expenses of the run.
Last week I discovered that a charity is encouraging people to give up to raise funds for it. I won't get into the rights and wrongs of this, but it's made me think of pubs in a different way.
I love pubs - lets just get that clear. I like walking into a pub I've never been to before and just feeling at home. It's not that common, but when it happens it's amazing. Alcohol being a social lubricant, it's going to be strange going to pubs and not drinking alcohol. I used to just not go to pubs if I wasn't drinking, but this time I've got a social life to keep up - I've started enjoying darts night (more for the catch up with friends once a week than the game) for example.
Today's obviously day one, and I'm looking forward to it. When eating out, I'll pick pubs that have good beer to go with the good food. I can't remember the last time I went to a restaurant for a meal, so that's something to look forward to - at the end of the month I want to use the money I've saved to take my fiancee out somewhere nice.
I'm now tying it in with the charity run I'm doing, which is raising money for Parkinson's UK. I started running for them once a year after seeing a video of what Parkinson's has done to Mohammed Ali. If you fancy donating the price of a pint of beer to the cause, I'd appreciate it, whether it's for not drinking for a month or running the 10k. Just text ecjd86 £xx to 70070 - or click here for my JustGiving site.
Cheers
