I drink therefore I am. Or why life is a load of old bowls.

The catkins are hanging off the willows and lolling on the walls of the houses on the Mall, thick as butcher’s fingers and yellow as nicotine. Spring is here.

I’m pondering nothing very much as I potter along the river towards a piss-up with pals in a pub in Putney when the sun and the scent of the sap seeping from the buds on the trees start to stir up my imagination.

I’m not hallucinating

I’m not saying I’m having an apotheosis like Wordsworth in a field of Lake District daffodils or about to go all weepy and whiny about my wasted life like ‘Ozymandias’ after a basin full of laudanum.

Of course, not.

After all, this is only the Thames path, not nature red in tooth and claw. Or even Richmond Park. But the fresh air and sap has got me thinking.

I’m in the sort of trance you get just after the third pint of lager or Aperol Spritz kicks in, on a summer’s day. I’m filled with the peace which comes from graciously laughing at a friend’s joke, even though you’ve heard it 42 times before and never, ever, ever found it funny. (A feeling familiar to wives and women in long standing relationships, apparently).

But I am in trance

The trance is throwing up big questions, too. If I have a problem with my tax code should I call my accountant or Boris Johnson? Will the Human Tissue Authority be willing to take my body for medical science or will I have to pay them to take it as the children suggested last night? Trickiest of all: am I pointless?

This last question, which lurks in the mind of every aging male Boomer as they find themselves stranded above the high tide mark of their careers and libidos, is the easiest to answer. No, no yet.

Why?

Because if I have two mates still willing to put up with me for a couple of hours, then I have meaning. It doesn’t matter if I’m to be the only person in history to pay his way into the medical morgue at the Human Tissue Authority or that I don’t have the PMs personal number to call when things get taxing.

Ergo Bibendum sum

As long as someone’s willing to meet me for a drink, even if it’s only for a single round of schnapps, I am not pointless. As long as there’s a campfire somewhere where other people will bear with you while you roast some old chestnuts, there’s an alternative to the despair of bike club and Sundays spent in padded lycra shorts with the other MAMILs.

Ergo Bibendum sum. I drink therefore I am. QED.

A few days ago, I watched a TV programme about Socrates, the Greek philosopher, and I wonder if his rigorous approach to logic and problem solving has rubbed off on me?

It may have taken me five decades to have a serious philosophical idea, but Socrates left some of his best thinking to the end of his life, maybe I have too? Is it possible that with ‘ergo bibendum sum’, I’ve moved western philosophy forward, if only an inch or two?

‘I don’t get it,’ says one friend, after I explain my philosophical epiphany to them, at the pub.

‘What he’s saying is that life is more bearable with friends,’ says the other.

‘And booze?’ asks the first.

‘Sounds like Epicurus to me,’ says the second, trying to sound positive.  

‘It’s more than that?’ I reply.

‘Is it?’

They both look at me. It’s clear that they are not as excited by my towpath epiphany as I am. In fact, they don’t seem to get it at all. They’re looking at me benevolently bemused. It’s a look I see on my wife’s face quite often.

‘When you said campfire were you being literal?’ asks one of them.

‘It was a metaphor for human conviviality,’ I say, beginning to get frustrated.

‘Oh. Got it.’

Is it time to take up bowls?

There’s a pause as I soak up the fact that my idea is nothing new nor any great shakes. In fact, it’s probably too late to have any new or original ideas at my age. The intoxicating scent of blossoming nature has conned me into thinking I can think.

‘Time for another?’ I ask.

‘Why not,’ says the other.

‘Same again?’ says the only one who has the patience to use the pub’s drinks app.

‘Do you think we should take up bowls?’ says one, looking around.

‘Cheaper than golf,’ says the other.

‘There’s a novel idea. Let’s order some chasers while we chat it through,’ I say feeling the sap of spring rising again.