The Big Weekender?

If it was the end of November in 1999, this post would be very different. Snow and I were 19 and we'd just moved to our first flat in London. We'd left the provinces, bundled all our stuff into bags and moved down into the darkest depths of South West London. We met a 17 year-old Saskia - who was not so much Dame of Pinkdom, but more skin-headed, pipe-smoking teenager - and embarked on a 4-year journey of raving.

A typical weekend would start at 10pm on the Saturday night, getting ready to go out. We'd arrive at Bagley's in Kings Cross at around 11:30pm and we'd have a couple of drinks. We'd spend the rest of the night pumping our bodies full of more chemicals we could get our grubby little hands on, drink only water from the taps in the toilets poured into Evian bottles (we were quite happy to pay £5 for pills from strangers, but refused to pay for more than one £1.50 bottle of water), and we'd rave until 7am when the lights would come up and the bouncers would forcibly remove us.

With skin looking like rubber, sweat stains on our Cyberdog clobber and eyes the size of dinner plates, we'd jump straight on the tube and head off to another rave, usually Sunnyside Up. This would be a daytime affair and the ravers there - including us - would look slightly worse for wear than they'd done the previous night. A day of raving would follow, with more substances and more water and a fair amount of sweaty dancing.

At the end of that rave, we'd head off to our final dance-athon of the day/night and mosey on over to Fever which would be full of the really hardcore ravers, who were technically on their last legs.

After pushing through the pain barrier there, we'd go to someone's (anyone's) house to finish things off. It'd be about 10pm Sunday night and we'd carry on with more chemicals.

This leg of the weekend would end on Monday lunchtime and me and Snow would find ourselves wandering home through the streets of Tooting, rubbing shoulders with all the workers on their lunch breaks, while we were still in our clothes from Saturday. We'd have a couple of days to get back on track and then we'd be ready to go through the whole pill/dancing/sweating merry-go-round again the next weekend.

But you see, it's not the end of November in 1999, we're not 19 years old and we're not spending our student loans on drugs. It's the end of November in 2006, we're 27 years old and we're now spending our wages on food.

And that's all we did this weekend. I had high hopes of us lauding it up around town, drinking and dancing and making new friends. Instead we spent Friday and Saturday eating our own body weight in cookies, cakes and Christmas-themed drinks. Home-made puttenesca, Waitrose cookies, Marks and Spencer cookies and mince pies featured heavily. We ventured out to a French bistro in Highgate village and had 6, count them, 6 courses. Deep-fried Camembert, bread baskets, chocolate fondants and liqueur coffees.

Waking up this morning we knew we wouldn't be going dancing, but instead cracked on with the biscuits, the paninis and the fizzy pop.

I am ready to burst now and all I am fit for is an evening in front of a DVD.

This'll be fine, but it's made me realise that we need to get back out there. We're 27 not 47 and there's a dance floor out there with our names on it.

I only hope we'll all manage to fit into our party wear!