Control 104

"You're a nicer person when you're not pissed," I say to Wilma. And then the thought occurs to me "What if you don't want to be a nicer person?" In her kitchen, you have to tiptoe carefully amongst the spilled bowls of cat food. I feel more relaxed in a dishevelled house; the people who keep stomach-knottingly tidy houses are the odd ones out, with their tense display of order, trying to prove something. We chatted, half-watching a recording of Ireland v someone in the rugby last weekend, getting through two or three bottles glasses of wine.

The eldest and I went orienteering on Saturday. Scratched legs, some impressive-looking blood smeared on the map from a grazed hand, my dodgy knee complaining, getting whipped in the face by branches, clambering up and down slippery moss-covered rock-strewn banks...all against the clock -- it was exhilerating fun, with the fine drizzle making everything a bit more dangerous. And I am particularly proud that we managed to get to control 104, about which the organiser said, seeing as we were complete novices, "I wouldn't go down there if I were you." We were on a simplified version of the course for beginners, but in our group we came 8th out of 18. We're going again next month, up on the crags near Silverdale.

"Are you wearing a bit of eye-liner?" I ask my middle daughter, trying not to sound argumentative, who looks stylish in an orange woollen knee-length dress, black tights and patent leather shoes. The eyeliner looks dreadful to me. She's got the beautiful uncreased eyes of a fourteen-year-old girl. Why darken and hollow them? They all go off to a party with one of their friends, who is wearing narrow red jeans, baseball pumps, and one of those hats that looks like a bear.

Kirsty and boyf turned up at 7ish last night after their weekend away. Kirsty is wired, twitching in a way I recognise, and wants to go down the pub with boyf to slake the drugs. "Don't rush," I say, and we three know what has been going on, and how it's an implied offer to have the girls for another night if they need more time to apply the brakes.

But they don't, and I come back here and miss Trina's strokable, kissable, sexy body. She's in a pub in Llansomewhere, in Wales, out with her ex husband and their son and his fiancée. I write sex to her on the phone, concluding "[...] Realise this might not be the best time to send you this but I can't resist. I fancy you like fuck."

I know this is a lesson that most men don't take almost fifty years to realise, but you've got to want to fuck the girl you're going out with. I love how she makes me feel, putting sex at the core of who I am.