Kishore Singh:More wine is fine

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The first time my wife had a drink, she went to sleep immediately after. This was no earthshattering moment since my wife sleeps easily and often.

But it didn't endear her at that time to her mother-in-law as the occasion was my sister's wedding when it would have been more useful to have had members of the family, however peripheral, alert rather than asleep.

But that was a long while ago, and since then my wife has come a long way, though just how far she'd progressed was only borne out a couple of evenings back.

This time the event was a formal one, and as befitted it, it got off to a start with champagne. Now, it is possible my wife didn't know we were there for dinner, and so claimed innocence subsequently when it came to having herself a refill sooner rather than later.

But as a result, she said, as were we escorted to dinner at The Grill Room at The Chambers, that she was quite through, thank you, and would pass the Rothschild and Armailhac wines that had been paired with the French meal.

She also said later that it wasn't that she wanted any more wine "" really "" just that the steward had served them so graciously, she couldn't refuse.

Which is why she managed not just to match her courses with her wines, she managed, for most part, to stay ahead of the courses as well.

Barely had the Mouton Cadet been poured, it was over and she wanted seconds. The subsequent wines "" five of them, all red, and that's not counting the dessert wine at the end "" came and went so fast, I was compelled to hiss at her.

"Perhaps," I said in the vernacular, "you should ease up a bit, there's a long evening ahead." "The better to relax with," she said, quaffing what poets have described as nectar, but which, I was convinced, would act like a sleeping potion for her.

All around the table, waiters removed wine glasses, several of them decadently half-full, but you could note their satisfaction when they saw my wife had not only finished hers, she'd practically licked them clean.

By now, I was worried: not only had my wife had more wine than she's ever had before "" she wasn't anywhere near falling asleep. Predictably, it was late by the time we reached home, but she hadn't snoozed in the car on the way either. And though I got into bed, she busied herself pottering around doing the stuff women tend to do "" though at more civilised hours.

That night, my wife didn't sleep at all "" or at least barely so. Which is why, quite sure she wouldn't want to go out the next evening, I was looking forward to an early tuck-in. "But I want to go," insisted my wife, wide-eyed, "our hosts are bound to have wine on the menu."

They did, even though after the previous night's excess it might have been cardboard for all that I could taste. But anxious that my wife shouldn't go to sleep in the middle of a conversation "" she hadn't slept in nearly 36 hours "" I monitored her intake diligently but, as it proved, unnecessarily.

For once again, she kept vigil through most of the night. Just when I was sure she'd be cranky for lack of sleep, my wife surprised me yet again: "That uncle of yours," she said this morning, "he's going to be around for dinner, so will you make sure we have wine in the fridge." "But he doesn't drink wine," I pointed out. "But I do," she said.

Clearly, she isn't going to be sleeping for some time to come.