Once upon a time there was a very nice man. He had a fairly uneventful childhood and grew up to be kind to children and animals - you know the sort of thing. And then, lo! The Nice Man married a Nice Girl and they had two children and took out a mortgage on a Nice House in the country and got a kitten and it all looked very idyllic.

And then the drinking started.

For a long time, nobody knew about the drinking. The Nice Girl always looked pretty and happy and bright and normal, but the Nice Man started to refuse social engagements to the point where his family would invite him to weddings and parties but they knew that he wouldn’t turn up, and neither would the Nice Girl.

So time went on, and still nobody but their very closest friends knew about the problem. Actually, I doubt that even they - no, not even his family - knew the true extent of the problem, because things had got very bad indeed. We are not talking about ordinary social drinking, let me make that clear. We are talking about wheelie bins full of White Lightning empties from a single evening because nothing else was available. We are talking about people having things thrown at their head, punched, kicked and slandered in public because of the ravings of an alcoholic. We are talking about someone dancing barefoot on broken glass and not feeling a thing because they were so, so out-of their-head drunk. We are talking about a real, honest-to-goodness alcoholic. Who wouldn’t admit that there was anything wrong with her behaviour at all.

Oh, yes, dear readers. It may come as a surprise to you, but it was the Nice Girl who had the problem.

For years, the Nice Man did what he could. He smiled and gritted his teeth and cooked and cleaned and shopped and took the children to the doctor and made sure they did their homework and attended school concerts when work allowed. In short, he did a damn fine job of being a single parent, within his dysfunctional marriage. And he had quiet words with the Nice Girl’s friends and asked them to please watch out for her when she went out without him, and he made sure not to keep any alcohol in the house, which of course did absolutely no good at all, because alcoholics are very good at finding supplies.

So why am I telling you this now? Because last week, she - the alcoholic, but still possibly nice-underneath-it-all, girl, moved out. She upped and left home.

The children chose to stay with their father, who breathed a sigh of relief and changed the locks. He would never have left her, but now he can have his life back, and the children can come home without wondering what they’re going to find when they open the door.

It is a very sad fact that no-one can help an alcoholic until they face the fact that they have a problem.

So far, this woman, once so pretty and bright, has not done that.

This time last year, I spent a week in LA having a great girly week with my Johnny Depp friends while OH explored the Grand Canyon and Utah, meeting up with his own internet buddies. Then we flew up to Vancouver to see his brother and spent another week there.

If you’re ever in Vancouver, go and eat at the Al Porto, in Gastown. Just do it. Go and find the Al Porto ristorante Italiano. It doesn’t look much from the outside, but the food is out of this world. And that’s not their only claim to fame.

We chose the place at random. Dead on our feet from sightseeing, and starving to death, I tripped over the board standing out on the pavement and staggered over to examine the menu. Looked good! We gazed up at the front of the building. Didn’t look very good at all, but what the heck, we were hungry and tired and there were seats inside.

And indeed there were. Upstairs, in that rather plain looking building, there was a quietly bustling, and really rather nice-looking restaurant with white tablecloths and everything. A grey-haired waiter appeared promptly, and taking in our travel-stained shorts and trainers, showed us to a table at the back. But oh, so very tactfully, and with a smile.

And that’s when the fun began.

Our waiter arrived. A different waiter. This one looked a little bit like an updated and improved version of a young John Travolta. Tall and dark with a million-watt smile and a decided twinkle lurking behind his extremely deferential air, he brought our menus, and made eye contact. He inspected the table to make sure it was perfect - and when he saw OH examining his cutlery with suspicion, he immediately returned with an air of wounded concern, eager to know how he had failed in his waiterly duties.

I said ‘It’s OK, my husband has a thing about tines’ and explained that crooked forks gave OH the heebie-jeebies, so all forks had to pass The Scrutiny.

The waiter smiled with complete understanding. That fork got replaced faster than you can say ‘Garçon!‘ and that set the tone for the evening.

Having multiple allergies, I have to enquire about many menu items, and this guy handled it. He didn’t sigh, or tut, or say ‘I don’t know’, he listened with a tiny crease between his brows, head tilted in my direction and an air of total absorbtion. He strode elegantly off to the kitchen, not once, but many times, to give the chef the third degree. He made suggestions. And what’s more, he managed to joke about it all with me, without once giving the impression that he was taking it as anything but a life-and-death matter.

The bread basket arrived with a smile, and a genuine, top-shelf, hint of a flirt. And it was amazingly delicious. The bread was delicious, I mean, although it had been so long since anyone had flirted with me that I found that pretty nice, too.

We ordered bruschetta. Oh, my. That bruschetta was something else. The bread was clearly made on the premises for the purpose and the flavours of garlic and tomato and parmigiano just exploded in the mouth. I shouldn’t even be eating bread in the first place, but … aaaaaahh!! It was irresistible!

Our waiter was delighted by our delight. He beamed, and he twinkled charmingly.

I can’t remember what OH ordered, but I went for the free-range chicken breast, which came with perfectly cooked vegetables and crushed potatoes, if I remember rightly, but who cares? It was amazing. Just delectable! And the waiter was overjoyed that we were happy, and stayed to exchange a little banter. He was quick, and funny, and made me feel like the wittiest person in the room, although OH didn’t do too badly either.

‘I wonder which school of waitering he went to?’ OH was heard to mutter, as the elegant black-clad rear disappeared happily once more.

I looked at him. He was smirking.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Haven’t you noticed?’ he said. ‘You’re the one whose glass gets filled as soon as you put it down.’

I looked at his half-empty wine glass and my own brimming one. Oh. Tee hee!

From then on, I have to say, I enjoyed myself. I don’t usually throw caution to the winds and flirt with strange men in front of my husband, but this guy was just so good at it - and OH sat there smirking and quietly enjoying the show, only now and then making barbed comments under his breath which made me choke with laughter and probably gave the departing garçon a brief moment of insecurity.

The guy was pretty cool. Although I think I shook him a little when he brought the serrated knife with my meal and I pounced on it and waved it in the air, pronouncing ‘Now, that’s what I call a knife!’

But at the end of the meal, when we sat smiling our Cheshire Cat smiles of perfect repletion and he came to ask if we’d enjoyed the meal, we did, at last, manage to shake his unflappable calm.

‘It was the best meal I’ve had in years!’ I gushed.

‘It was great!‘ said OH. ‘It was so good, that I want to shoot the chef, and she wants to have your babies!’

The million-watt smile became the tiniest bit fixed and he froze for a fraction of an instant, but he recovered quickly and laughed with us. However, when we went back later in the week he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

The following conversation ensued.

Me: I can’t see that waiter we had last time. Do you remember him?

OH: Oh yes. I remember him well. With his long, slicked back hair and his smile and his perfume.

Me: He was wearing perfume? I didn’t get close enough to find out!

OH: Oh yes. It was Eau de Waiter. No - make that Eau de Bastard.

Pause.

OH (hopefully): Perhaps he’s been sacked?

Me: Any restaurant that sacked that waiter would have to be insane.

OH: Mmm.

Me: Perhaps we frightened him off?

OH: Sweetheart, no-one who was easily shocked or embarrassed would be behaving as that boy was behaving with you.

I’m not convinced. But anyway. I can’t guarantee an evening of delightfully naughty flirting, but do go there if you can. The food really is incredible.

At least, it was last year. It’s almost worth another trip to Vancouver, just to find out.

Other Half had to drive me and The Princess to her therapy work today because our second son has taken my dogmobile off on a jaunt somewhere, it being the cheapest one to insure for him on a temporary basis. And so it was that while she and I were graciously allowing the clientèle of the local Sense educational daycare centre to pet her, he popped over to the shops to pass the time and pick up a few things he needed.

Imagine my surprise when he wouldn’t let me touch his precious shopping bags until we got home. Imagine my further surprise when he presented me with an impromptu gift, which he’d found and decided that I should have. Here it is -

Isn’t that something? Now it will be no surprise to those who know my OH that it is a mug, because he has a little bit of a mug fetish, but the sentiment is rather touching, don’t you think?

And this only a day after I so nearly lost one of the diamond studs he gave me when it popped out of my ear while I was washing my hair in the shower. If you can manage any more mental gymnastics today, imagine me, blind as a bat without my specs, grovelling about in a shower tray full of soapy water, while trying to keep one foot over the plughole and the conditioner out of my eyes.

It’s a pumped unit, too, so my terror was not purely on account of the diamond taking off on a trip to the sewers, but it probably wouldn’t have done the pump much good either.

But you know, if the worst had happened and I had not only lost the diamond but wrecked the shower into the bargain, he’d probably only have shaken his head sadly and said ‘Oh, sweetheart!‘

He’s good like that. He brought me a jar of chocolate caramel coffee to go with the mug, too!

Now do you see why I’ve kept him for thirty odd years?

I was reading the Doris Mash blog this morning - I’ve only just found it and I must just say that I’m enjoying it immensely - and I came across a snippet that she wrote in January this year about a campaign to stop battery chicken farming.

Now, I’ve been boycotting battery chicken meat and eggs for years. I found I was dwelling on the miserable, inhumane conditions that they lived in, and I realised that each time I bought six cheap eggs or a pack of cheap chicken, I was supporting the whole sorry process and that was simply unacceptable to me. At the time I made this decision, I couldn’t afford to buy free range meat, not that it was that easy to find, and so we simply did not eat chicken, and I bought barn eggs if I couldn’t find free range. Thankfully, these days most supermarkets have free range and/or organic chicken on the shelves, And in case you don’t know, by definition, organic has to be free range - one simply does not get organic battery chickens.

Anyway, the point of this little ramble today is to point you in the direction of a campaign to eliminate the whole sorry process of battery farming chickens. Don’t worry, there are no horrors on the page - in fact I didn’t see any at all on the site, though I didn’t open everything. Here you go - why don’t you go and read? Maybe you’ll feel moved to sign up to help let the chickens out.

Chicken Out campaign site

Oh, and go take a look at the Battery Hen Welfare Trust’s website. They’re not extremists, they work with the farmers, and don’t condone terrorist behaviour. Again, thankfully, no horrors that I could see, and they have a neat slideshow of ‘ex-bats’ (ex-battery hens) now adopted out and living the good life. It’ll make you smile!

For those who want to see what a battery hen looks like when first released, click here for a picture kindly provided by the BHWT - HenInHand. Not a pretty sight.

Here’s a nicer pic, of a recovered ex-bat.

Picture courtesy of the Battery Hen Welfare Trust.