Originally, I had planned a fair bit for this weekend. Saturday, especially, had a few things pencilled in during the day that would be better off done than not done.

Then someone informed me that there was a birthday celebration on Friday night that I would be attending, and that it would be a fairly hefty celebration. And that I would be heading to it straight after work.

This caused some disruption to my Saturday plans, so I got busy clearing Saturday for a heavy headache and nothing else. Because experience has taught me that nights out with this particular crowd result in a very, very painful recovery that lasts up to three days.

And so I went to work on Friday night, expecting a quiet shift, a loud drinking session after it, and a sore head. Then circumstances intervened.

• The quiet shift became somewhat more fraught when we ended up a man down, due to said man’s child being admitted to hospital at short notice.
• Halfway through the shift, the birthday boy ended up being removed from the drinking and sat round the back of the workplace with iced water, coffee, and a few towels to stem the bleeding. Because of …
• … the birthday boy’s brother being given a very reasonable choice by the lovely lads of the PSNI: walk away now or be put in the van.

So it was decided that post-shift drinks in the workplace would be less than ideal, from a public-relations (or, more honestly, from a boss-relations) point of view. So me and a mate decided to head further afield, where the tastiest pint of Guinness in a long time was had, along with a nice chat.

And I now have a clear Saturday with which to do nothing. Which I count as ‘bliss’.

So, some cluttered plans were scuppered by some nasty circumstances, but in the end it’s all worked out quite nicely. If only more of this could be arranged…