Smokin' date night..

Last night I shocked myself by staying up until 3am.  I haven't done this since BC (Before Children), nor in the West End since I worked in advertising at the end of the 1990's and spent rather too much time in Zilli's chatting up copywriters.

But sometimes even us Mummies have to dust off our heels, dig out our eyeliners, remember how to blow dry our hair and teeter out into the night.  The girls gave me their once over approval and were rewarded with red kisses that were still there this morning.

Husband and I vanished off into the depths of Soho never to be seen again.  We drank very delicious Martinis and Mojitos, smoked a few too many illicit fags, talked a lot of nonsense and staggered home far too late forgetting both to hold the cab for the babysitter or indeed to pay her.  Friends came in for a nightcap - always a bad sign.  Three hours later they wobbled out of the house as we rather rebelliously smoked a last fag whilst trying to count on drunk fingers how many hours until the kids woke up, and how long we could reasonably get away with leaving them downstairs eating dry Cheerios.

I slept like a dead person.  My husband didn't snore, a miracle - or maybe I was just too drunk to notice?  I woke at 8am feeling actually not too bad, the hangover and lack of sleep was far outweighed by the sheer guilty pleasure of having had a 'proper night out'.  The pain was to come later but it occurred to me that when life is dealing out some tricky cards it is easy to get bogged down with them.   Sometimes you just have to forget about everything for a while and go out and party, something which we cautionary parents perhaps don't do enough.

It's cleared the air in our house and despite feeling fragile physically, all of our spirits are visibly lifted.  It's even done the kids good seeing Mummy hungover and maybe I haven't shouted at them quite as much today.

And now?  Hangover munchies of leftover toasted cheese sandwich and Call the Midwife.

Oh it was well worth the pain.