Essex

Last Friday, the wife and I trogged over to Essex to celebrate the 21st birthday of the brother of a friend of ours. We reckon it's probably the last 21st we'll be invited to until our nephew and niece turn 21 in the year 2022.
Still, it was wild enough to last us 17 years. We got there at 22h00, to find
the golf club crammed with 200 Essexians. A wonderful species: the young males sport kooky ruffled plumage, held in place by lashings of "product"; The older males had mostly lost their plumage and were considerably broader and redder than their young. The females were ALL blonde.
The whole group absolutely adored each other. A spikey-haired youngster got his dad in a friendly headlock on the dance floor and knuckled his head while young and old looked on and laughed - Dad included.
Two hours later, It's chucking out time, and I'm 5 pints worse off. Back at Carrie's flat in Colchester, the beer gives way to bacardi breezer, and the lads persuade me to do some comedy songs (oh no, I couldn't possibly, no really, are you sure, well if you insist). I give the most slurred, bumbling, Alzheimers performance ever, and promptly leave to get some fags.
"Are you ztill licenzed to shell algohol?" I dribble at the shopkeeper.
It's 4am.
He isn't.
So I make do with fags, white bread and Doritos.
By 4.30 I'm having a little sit down in a chair in the corner (Nick Swift taught me everything I know). I awake to find my chin covered in drool, and my wife dancing on a 2ft square coffee table with 5 youngsters.
She's cool.
I'm a grandad.
I go back to sleep.