Booze Alternative: M&S Alcohol-Free Bucks Fizz

This is another alcohol-free option that I picked up to try last summer. In my drinking days Bucks Fizz was a Christmas drink in my eyes, but I think it’s important to break those kinds of habits and attitudes in sobriety (it is taking a LONG time to get used to the fact that I can drink ‘special’ alcohol-free drinks at times when I wouldn’t have drunk the alcoholic equivalents, e.g. while working, but I’m going to keep working on that). I actually think this alcohol-free version works better as a summer drink, because it’s nice and light.

M&S Alcohol-Free Bucks Fizz
M&S Alcohol-Free Bucks Fizz.

It was very tasty (and also felt quite celebratory according to my notes, though I can’t remember what I was celebrating), but I think the next time I feel like Bucks Fizz it’d be nicer to make my own with one of my favourite alcohol-free sparkling wines. Maybe a project for summer 2021.

Our new house…

…is gradually, very gradually, starting to feel like home.  Sort of.

I spent most of today dismantling the old Ikea Billy bookshelves that we don’t have space for anymore.  The plan is to make new ones out of them, but I’ll get my dad’s advice on that when he’s visiting later this week.  I also put one Billy up in the living room as temporary shelving next to the TV.  If I like the way it looks long-term it may get a reprieve.  It’s currently holding all our ornaments, which sounds frivolous but actually has the useful function of giving us some time to work out which ones we like looking at enough to keep.

Boxes are also getting unpacked a bit quicker than expected.  This is mainly because twice a day I realise that I need something, but don’t know which exact box it’s in, so I have to go through a few before I find the thing.  There’s not really anywhere for the stuff to go yet, but I am finding a lot of temporary solutions.

This week should be a real breakthrough, as once my parents have visited, we will have the walls painted upstairs, meaning that we can get the furniture finalised up there, meaning that I can get all our clothes and accessories put away.  Well, in my case, about 40% of them.  Dear God, I have far too many clothes.  The amount I’ve pulled out of boxes this week has been enough to send anyone screaming into the night.  The main reason I’m so impatient to get to my target weight is that I can’t wait for the giant trying-everything-on-and-then-getting-rid-of-most-of-it session that I’m not allowed to have until then.  You never know what might suddenly look awesome at target, so I’m not allowed to chuck anything out till then, no matter how old and scraggy it is.

(I realised yesterday that one of my current-rotation bras is about twenty years old, judging by the style of the M&S label.  Somehow, I don’t think it will survive the cull.)