Winding Down for the Weekend

I feel like I'm winding down for the weekend already.  Which, in a way, I am.  As far as the working week is concerned, I'm midweek right now, as I'm taking Thursday and Friday off, on account of it being my birthday on Thursday.  If I'm going to be forced to be another year older, I'd at least like to do it in the comfort of my own home.  Indeed, I'm feeling so anti-social this year that, even though my birthday falls on a day I'd normally go to the pub in the evening, I'm thinking of staying in all day. To be honest, I'm finding that these days the pub has lost a lot of its allure.  For one thing, we're back to the situation where most of the other regulars I once drank with have, for one reason or another, stopped coming in.  Of course, it could just be that they are deliberately going in on nights when they know I won't be there so as to avoid me.  In which case, fuck 'em!  Mind you, on the plus side, a lot of the piss heads who drank in the public bar and whose rowdy antics discouraged anyone with a brain cell from coming in, have decamped to another local pub selling cheaper strong lager.

Apart from the fact that I've reached a stage in my life where I'm entirely at ease with myself and happy with my own company, it occurred to me the other day that on those occasions when I have met friends and acquaintances in the pub for a few drinks on my birthday, I haven't actually enjoyed it.  To be fair, there have been a couple of times I've enjoyed it, but that's been down to the company - then again, those involved the presence of particular individuals I'd be glad to see any time, let alone birthdays.  But I digress.  Most of these occasions just seemed slightly forced - I always prefer social situations which occur by happenstance, without any real planning or intent.  Just bumping into people in the pub by chance is what pubs are all about, after all.  Obviously, with nobody but me going there these days, the chances of actually bumping into anyone I know by chance are pretty slim, but I live in hope of accidentally meeting someone interesting there.  But getting back to this year's birthday - I intend to doing what I secretly wanted to do on those times I was in the pub: stay at home and watch DVDs.  I have a stack of unwatched exploitation films, including the notorious Cannibal Holocaust and the Jesus Franco version of Venus in Furs, a good supply of beer in the fridge and, to top it all, there's the second leg of Spurs' Europa League tie against Lyon live on ITV4.   If only Spurs can contrive to win the tie, it'll be a damn near perfect day!