It was my birthday and I was getting drunk with Jill. Twenty-two today and making a dutiful effort to feel cheerful. That's what you do on these kinds of anniversaries. On this very day, 22 years ago, I came into the world: a definite cause for unrestrained jollity. If you're feeling blue, you just have to whoop it up anyway, and be stubbornly gleeful.

Cheers Jill!

Nice of Jill to share her good brandy with this wandering straggler.

So, there we were, glugging back this rather nice, soft, fruity booze. I'm no connoisseur, but I could tell it was the good stuff. It was going down smoothly and I was beginning to enjoy that warm, fuzzy feeling. I didn't have to think of anything to say because Jill had lots to tell. All I needed to do was sit there, smiling, slurping and nodding. No worries.

Jill had all the worries. There was this fellow - can't remember his name - something unpronounceable and unspellable. I think he was Greek. Well, she was besotted. She'd left her husband, she said, because he was useless. And, of course, because she wanted to concentrate all her affections on her new sweetheart. Except he didn't know he was her new sweetheart. She'd yet to persuade him of their shared feelings. And they weren't getting any younger, she fretted.

You're as old as you feel!

That was me trying to be supportive and reassuring. I supposed they must have been middle-aged - from my perspective at that time, a bit too old for this sort of giddiness. But it was sweet. Jill was worried that her body was sailing south: sagging horribly. She said she was trying to counter the decline by wearing firmly elasticated undergarments to sleep: tight pants and brassiere.

In this heat, it must be hell!

We were in Spain incidentally. She'd been a headmistress of an English girls' school. She and her husband had holiday'd with the handsome Greek friend annually. I, on the other hand, was a piece of flotsam, drifting where the currents took me - escaping from commitments. It was only supposed to be a short holiday - two weeks. Six months later, here I sat, listening to the nice lady and getting gently sozzled.

Jill emptied the last few drops into my glass, then stood up shakily and wobbled over to the cupboard for another bottle. She was obviously not a regular boozer. It didn't occur to me at the time - nor to her apparently - but the brandy wouldn't be helping to reverse the wrinkling and sagging. Neither would that deep tan that she worked so hard to maintain - or the cigarettes, for that matter.

It's amazing what you can tolerate with a nice clean liver that's had hardly any hammering. We'd had about two thirds of a litre of the Soberano between us and were about to start on the next bottle. Jill was getting weepy. Oh bugger! If I knew anything, I'd know what to say to make her feel better.

Oh, don't flood. Here, have a tissue. Shall I make you a nice cuppa?

She blew her nose, dabbed at her smudged mascara, and poured herself another glass.

He lived about 50 miles away, out of town, and it would be so much more convenient if she could give up the teaching job and move into his villa. But he wasn't ready to commit. Even in my current state of inebriation, I could see the problem: he hadn't expected or asked for Jill to dump her hubby. They hadn't even been having an affair. She made it happen. The poor Greek seemed to be just too kind and polite to tell her to get knotted. I wasn't drunk enough to point out the obvious flaw in her plotting and planning. That's the advantage of a virtually new, efficiently functioning liver: it can save you a lot of grief and embarrassment.

Poor Jill. Those salty tears couldn't be doing much for the skin round her eyes and cheeks. And once the water-works had started, they couldn't be stopped. We'd had enough alcohol for celebrations and commiserations. I felt it was time to be off. It was only a couple of blocks along the coast road, then up a few floors above the Salida de la Fiesta sign, to my small apartment: just a kitchen/living room, bedroom and bathroom. We said goodnight and I tottered off home, wondering if Jill would remember to squeeze into her uncomfortable foundation garments before falling asleep.

Inside my apartment, I switched on the light and filled a kettle. I needed at least two cups of coffee - possibly three. While the water was heating, I visited the loo. There was a special ritual for using the bathroom, but in my befuddled state, I'd forgotten. The light-switch was outside the bathroom door. It was important to switch it on a few minutes before opening the door and entering the room. Otherwise the thing that happened, would be bound to happen. I walked right in, without thinking, and then, hearing the inevitable crunch, crunch, crunch, I stopped, horrified.

I used to hate cockroaches with a passion. These ones were more handsome than the plain, black English ones you find in hotel kitchens and wine cellars. Beautiful, really. With carapaces like polished wood: red-gold and black mottled. Even so, a fast-moving carpet of the little scuttlers was enough (still is) to give me the screaming heebie-jeebies. I jumped back and slammed the door. Ugh, yuck, arrrrghh! And switched the light on too late - before trying to concentrate on making my first cup of coffee.

It had gone midnight, so at least I wouldn't be spending the evening of my birthday scraping squashed cockroaches off the bathroom floor.

That was more than half a life-time ago, when I was a dopy, half-baked hippy. The memory still makes me smile - and shudder.