Lake Kirsty

On Thursday Kirsty went off with boyf for the weekend. It was raining heavily, something so ordinary now I don't give it much attention.

On the following morning I thought we'd have to get the Ordnance Survey in to add a feature to the map of Lancaster. A small pond had arisen in Kirsty's back yard, from the blocked drain against the wall of her kitchen, extending almost to her back door three yards away, and fingering towards Much Older but Fanciable Next Door Neighbour's yard. Everything sent down the kitchen sink came belching back up, making Lake Kirsty bigger.

Middle daughter Jenny set to bailing us out with a bucket and a cup, shovelling the water into a recycling bin, which we dragged out and along the road to pour it down the drain, repeatedly.

This morning I tried caustic soda as a lazy chemical solution. To unblock drains, it said, put 100ml down, so I put 500ml down. Still nothing shifted. After a couple of hours I stuck my hand down as far as it would go and removed several handfuls of clumps of hair and dripping black, viscous slime, and I think, the main culprit, a stone, two inches long by an inch wide. The drain has a kink in it and it was difficult getting my arm around the bend and my skin was scraping against the edge of the drain. But I cleared it, water running freely in a test.

Next time, get a man in

I went for a shower. My forearm was suppurating with a clear liquid over dark red patches of what looked like subcutaneous blood which wept onto my skin through hundreds of pinpricks; the hot water stung. Afterwards my arm still smelt of drain, and was still oozing. I imagined a terrible infection and an amputation at the elbow and being in the local paper for being brave. I went down the pub where Neil and Kev gave me some of their prescription-only cream for irritated skin. It helped a great deal. Neil and Kev asked to borrow a tenner and we spent it all on drink.

A man whom I try not to talk to since he's a bullshitter, saying he was at a Ronnie McNeir gig with me at Warrington in the mid 80s when he wasn't, who unnerves me with his attempts at insinuating himself with me, looked admiringly at my alkaline scars and asked me how I'd done it, reading a manly labour of dirt, graft, injury. But I don't want to appear good in your eyes.

A much better man, a shaggy-haired boyfriend of someone I know, told me not to do it like that again but to ring him up and I could borrow his drain-clearing rods, for free, as he's a groundworker. I don't know what a groundworker is. He said he was only popping in for one but I think I misjudged it in taking that at face value and patting him on his waist as a farewell instead of inviting him over to our table. Courteous, self-effacing people sometimes say the opposite of what they mean and it's up to you to read that.

At home I rang Trina, and we had a conversation which was too enjoyable for me to broach my worry: I don't want to live with you. Then I turned the lights down and played some music and tried to drain the last weak effect from an enfeebled bottle of poppers. I must replenish my stock: cheap but effective thrills.