Day Eighteen. Who IS this woman who gets excited about fruit juice?

Good JuJu

Mango, pineapple, mint, ginger and lemongrass.
Orange carrot, red capsicum, black carrot, lemon, ginger and turmeric.
Goulburn Valley pear, mango, passionfruit, Thai basil, and cayenne pepper.
Pink lady, raspberry, boysenberry, mint, rose water and lemon.

Am I living in the luckiest era of sobering up ever?

I was doing a quick swipe through the supermarket today when I paused - uncharacteristically - next to the fresh juice cabinet. Guess where some of my first wine-money savings went?

And there is a cordial of lemon, lime, mint and cucumber, and another of red currants, cranberry, and pomegranate, as well as the local Buderim ginger brew.

Juice is for kids

We aren't much of a juice family these days.  The teens mostly drink water or - when nagging prevails - binge on tart soft drinks like Solo or ginger beer. The Prof is a Type 1 diabetic and won't touch juice (he says it takes too long in a hypo but in reality, why waste your sugar fix on juice when you can have lollies?). And generally juice is too sweet for my taste, even when I was a kid myself.

Yet it wasn't so long ago that a couple of big bottles of apple or orange juice were a permanent item on the shopping list and doled out diluted with water or soda water (as per 'good' parenting rules in the noughties).

'Mum-juice'

Wine, or mum-juice, is of course made of fruit.  

'Come over and have some runny grapes,' says a dear friend of mine - I haven't had to reply to that one yet, since Day One, but I am sure she'll be fine with it when I do.  I was a very bad influence on her every time we did get together, opening bottle after bottle and playing cards or pictionary in teams against our husbands, neither of whom were big drinkers.

Last time I saw her, last year,  I drank so much I really did get a hangover, a very rare event because my body was a stunningly efficient alcohol processor by then.  It was one of those nights when I was aware I was going overboard but thought the best answer to that was to have another glass and keep laughing. 

Poor woman.  How bloody horrible for her.

Sigh. Still processing those moments. I imagine it will take some time.

Mum's juice

From mum-juice to Mum's juice: those pretty coloured bottles are mine, along with a glorious new array of teas (sipping on green tea with lemon and ginger just now) and mineral waters galore.  I don't see any reason for sobriety to be dull.

The first sampling tonight was the Lemon, Lime, Cucumber and Mint cordial with soda water and some slices of cucumber.  It was at least as good as the last drink I had with cucumbers (and Hendricks Gin) and in many ways, so much better.

Seriously though: how awesome is it to be sober when there's so much more in the juice section than apple, orange or tomato?

MTC