I got the concept, of course, because it wasn’t the first self-help book I’d been given in my life (not even the first one I’d been given by Dom), but I suspected that going deep, in my case, would mean wading through some pretty dodgy shallows. Most likely starting with why I chose to live in a garden shed when there was a standing invitation to a perfectly good, bordering on luxury house a couple of metres away.

Anyhow, after the job of getting back to nature was postponed due to lack of interest, and the page at chapter two was folded neatly back, I decided that my replacement birthday warranted a few cheeky pre-happy-hour pints. Dom was at work, probably chiselling someone a new chin or sculpting a Natalie Portman schnozz du jour; George was at school, most likely teaching the head how to suck eggs; and I was careful to avoid eye contact with Gentleman. Consequently, there was no voice of reason to remind me that daytime drinking is a slippery slope I’d be well advised to steer clear of.

Although there had been one notable exception a few weeks back, which was, ironically, the only reason I was even able to consider another mid-afternoon visit to the pub. I’d taken the £350 I’d made at my most recent job at a petrol station (where my decision to catch a quick forty winks in the middle of my shift resulted in two blokes in an SUV driving off with a free tank of diesel and my well-deserved dismissal) and fed it into the fruit machine at the Lamb and Flag. Influenced by a couple of pints at an earlier than usual hour, I’d decided that chunky handful of tenners would take me where I’d never been before; to financial freedom, no early mornings or dead-end jobs, and ultimate happiness. For once, me and the beer were right, and I was only a few notes in when the machine was somersaulting pineapples all over the place and delivering me a very tidy £2130 jackpot.

But even though the still sober and sensible part of me understood the happy events of that last episode of day drinking had been a one-off, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, I still had a smidge over £600 in my Halifax Super Saver account (and £1100 in cash stuffed into an old pair of trainers under my bed) from my big win, and on my replacement birthday, I figured, what could possibly go wrong?

No, really, I did.

Five hours, seven pints and a chicken burger and a half later, I weaved my way along Glenmore Road carrying a split plastic bag stuffed with a burger for Dom, an extra-large serving of George’s all-time-favourite greasy fish sticks, and a frozen chocolate cake from Londis. I aimed myself successfully at number 67 and, straight as an arrow, strode through the gate and up the two steps to the front door.

Obviously, that’s a lie. I stumbled up the path, tripped on the first step, and spent the next couple of minutes trying to peel myself off the ground. When I eventually did manage to stand up, which was no mean feat with only Dom’s unhelpful pair of topiaries for assistance, I had to muster every last shred of concentration to get my key in the front door on the third go. Most of the time if I stop off at the pub for a pint or three I manage to stay in pretty good control. Everything’s hunky-dory and I can walk the fifteen minutes from the Lamb to Dom’s front door without missing a beat and aim that key like a heat-seeking missile. But if I make the fatal decision to let down my guard to pint number five or six, things have a propensity to go south. And occasionally east and west. Dom and George can and do back me up on that.