The weekend started badly with my Lenten resolved smashed on Friday night by a well-meaning Uni Boy making me eat a bar of Milka when I got home from work.  It had been a very long bad Friday.  It should have been good – it could have been good – all three of my meetings got cancelled for reasons that had nothing to do with me but I still had to spend the day sorting out other people’s cock ups and turning my stream of consciousness notes from a meeting into some kind of comprehensible report.  God it was boring.

Got a lift half way home and nowadays the combination of music in my ears and my Kindle in front of me makes the bus journey bearable.  College Boy was out playing American football somewhere – not on the astro turf apparently as it wrecks your knees so the house was peaceful apart from whingeing cat.  Sports Relief made me cry all evening but then I could have changed the channel.  There was a major catastrophe in the kitchen when  the bag that Uni Boy was taking round to a friend’s house split and three-quarters of a bottle of vodka smashed and splattered on the kitchen floor.  Five minutes before the bus was due.  I made soothing noises, College Boy made hoots of derision and I left the kitchen in a hump to go and sit outside with the whingeing cat and calm down.

College Boy cleaned up the mess and patted me patronisingly but peace was restored and Uni Boy caught his bus.  Come home hub?  Come home from work and rescue me from these roaring boys?

Saturday was College Boy’s 17th birthday and we were up earlyish; the intention being that hub, my dad and I would take College Boy to Blackpool to meet up with some of his friends for a day’s swaggering at the Pleasure Beach, then having dropped him off we would drive on up to Morecambe and have lunch.

Blackpool was looking good; sunny and full of shiny happy people still because it was too early for the drunks.  The drive up to Morecambe – once we got off the motorway  – was lovely, so lovely that we decided to navigate the pretty way on the way back.

The Midland Hotel was splendid, I waved at Eric Morecambe’s statue, did a brief nod of obeisance to the memorial for the cocklepickers and we had an excellent lunch in a deserted restaurant with sea views.  It was sunny and the seafront was a magnet for handholding older couples.  My dad was happy as Morecambe is a special place for him and he enjoyed showing it off to us.

Back on the road and his navigational skills proved to be as erratic as my own.  We somehow found ourselves half-way to Kirby Lonsdale before we knew it and I had to call on the extra reserves of Mrs Sat Nav who lives in my phone.  Having asked her to take us back to Blackpool avoiding the motorway, she did so with gusto and a multitude of sheep tracks that led us to a very long road called Burnt House Lane.  No, couldn’t see one  – perhaps it got knocked down or rebuilt – or it was just someone’s idea of a silly joke?

The scenery was even better on the way back though and we arrived at a still sunny Blackpool in time to pick up a totally shattered College Boy, find some fodder for him and drive back home.  He fell asleep in the car and set a new record for stentorian snoring. Our laughter kept waking him up and rather than fuel his ever-present adolescent paranoia we had to pretend we were laughing at the radio.  Hmmm.

Uni Boy – having slept all day – but then he didn’t get back till 0330 hrs – was wandering around in the towelling dressing gown he wears as if it were a smoking jacket.  He was slightly gutted by the news that we would be waking him up at midday on Sunday because College Boy was having friends round and we were all too embarrassing for words – especially me.

We had tickets to see Richard Herring at Eric’s in Liverpool  for Sunday evening  – so having been evicted from our own house after lunch we drove over to Liverpool and spent a pleasant afternoon drinking cider and bitter shandy on the steps outside the Britannia at Otterspool trying to work out which hapless local was going to have the best sunburn in the morning.  It was nice actually spending daylight time with Uni Boy for a change.

The three of us went into Liverpool for dinner – which would have been nice except for the fact that the burglar alarm in the restaurant was malfunctioning and for most of our meal was emitting a high-pitched squeal.  They knocked 20% off the bill though and the noise drowned out the muzack and the hundreds of small children that arrived shortly after us.

To Mathew Street and more people watching – we’d been standing opposite Eric’s for about fifteen minutes when we noticed a queue beginning to form.  Eventually we wandered over and joined what we thought was the end – only to find that subsequent arrivals went to the other end and we ended up being the beginning.  The couple that we’d joined weren’t bothered so we stayed as we were until a very tall young man with much hair, beard and a bright green tee-shirt turned up with two girls and after making some very loud comments to each other about “we don’t do queueing” – positioned themselves in front of us and the door.

I really hoped the other door would open and we’d be at the end again but it didn’t and they went in first and took seats in the front row.  We opted for the safety of the third row centre – a good view and sufficient camouflage to avoid any flak. It worked.

Richard Herring was wonderful.  My sides ached from laughing and my mascara was wrecked.  Eric’s was a great venue and the large lad in green came in for some stick  from Mr Herring – just for being large, green, bearded and being in the front  row – Hah!

The house was still standing when we got home and nothing appeared to have been broken or removed.  Going back to work today was something of a comedown but hub and I are working on our year of laughing dangerously by seeing as many of our favourite comics as we can afford this year.  Comedy Store in Manch next month, Jon Richardson in May and Sarah Millican (again) in October.

It’s good to laugh.