USUALLY, I’m happy enough hanging with the lads, but last Saturday I decided to go on a girls’ lunch outing to Liverpool.
I suggested it, in fact, and the birds were all in agreement that I should join them.
As a poet of sorts, I’m considered sensitive, you see, so I count as an honorary girlie.

First we met – rather late for a lunch date, at 3.30pm-ish – in Ye Olde Coffee Beane Bar and Bistro, Liscard.
(Liscard, for those that don’t know this part of the world, is the shopping centre for the old Wallasey borough, though there isn’t much shopping left there, nor can it be called much of a centre, following 30-odd years of decline and misrule by the 'Death Star' that is Wirral Council).
All we had in the Beane was coffee. I was the last to arrive – having had a couple of work-related hassles to delay me – and I struggled to place a quick order for coffee with an inattentive male waiter.
He was far too busy gassing with the gaggle of girlie lunchers on the adjoining table to be bothered with anyone wanting to place an order.
Well, all we blokes are a bit metrosexual and gossipy these days, I suppose, even in Wallasey, which is so old-fashioned it’s only just got Channel 4.
Eventually, we got the bus to Liverpool – that’s me, Tallulah Swells, the Bacardi Queen and Delilah Durham, top birds all of ‘em.
We fat-necked our first two rounds in the Globe, near Central Station, which is the nearest thing Liverpool has to Hell’s Waiting Room – the New Brighton bar made famous by, er, well, this blog actually.
The girls and me then tottered off to a place called Little Coopers, I think, and we also called into the Blob Shop, though we didn’t stay for a drink there because some of my girlfriends thought the regulars had too many serious skin disorders, and quite possibly leprosy in a couple of cases.
Hey, look, I just report this stuff…
Then it was off the Old Post Office pub, which was nice, though they only serve wine in those tiny little glasses you used to get in the 1960s (tarts’ glasses, I call them), which is a shame.
Eventually, we made it to lunch at the Bistro Pierre, somewhere round the back of British Home Stores, only to be slightly disgruntled to be put on a non-smoking table.
(I am so sick of all this paranoia about smoking, and I rather suspect that Liverpool’s idiotic, shambolic, Liberal-Democrat council has sent public health nazis scuttling around the city, encouraging businesses to get in their smoking bans BEFORE it becomes law this summer.)
The food at Bistro Pierre was actually very good, but by the time we stumbled out of there we were all in the mood to jump a cab back to dear old New Brighton, which is exactly what we did.
We carried on drinking in The Vagabond pub, across from Hell’s Waiting Room. We would, of course, have preferred to have been drinking in the Waiting Room, but, well, one of our number, sadly, is barred from there.
Anyway, the next thing I know, I am feeling unsteady on my feet, so I have a large Jamieson’s to calm myself down.
When I got home later, I realised I had once again forgot to bring my keys out with me so I was locked out of my flat.
I managed to get into the communal hallway of the block, however, so then I tried to force the yale lock on the front door to my place. I charged at it, shoulder-first, like I’ve seen ‘em do on The Bill when they raid the Copcroft or the Larkmead for drugs.
I charged at the door three times, but failed to burst it open. All I managed to do was wreck my shoulder, and I still have the bruises to prove it.
I then did what most people do in such circumstances. I swore very loudly, waking up the dog in the flat above me.
She is a Staffy bitch with a very loud bark and was not at all pleased that I had interrupted her beauty sleep with all my crashing about in the hallway.
Then I spotted a long ladder propped up in the stairwell, left there by a builder two summers ago.
A-ha! A solution… I gingerly carried the ladder out into the back yard, noticing with relief that I’d left my bedroom window open.
Somehow, being drunk, I had the agility to climb the ladder and slip into the flat through my bedroom window. It was a tight squeeze but I have lost a bit of weight recently so I managed it.
The only damage was to a rather straggly pot plant, which got knocked off the window sill by my foot.
I was sick of the sight of that miserable plant anyway, so I gave it a quick burial in the swing bin, then even had the foresight to hoover up the compost that had spilled from the pot onto the carpet.
Unfortunately, by that time it was past 2am on Sunday, and the racket the sweeper made started that bad-tempered bitch upstairs barking again.

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