Let's get anetic

Trina couldn't come to the Modern Soul night in St Anne's so I went by myself.

No trains were running that night on that line (I refused the hi-vi'd man's offer of a rail replacement bus service that would have to sloth round a dozen little villages first), so caught a train to Blackpool North instead, thinking I could get a bus from there.

On Blackpool prom the screaming miniskirted girls felt their way forward with a high-heeled gait midway between that of a toddler and a wrestler; lads in tight white logo-ed vests are loudly homosocial, looking not much different from the clientele of Trade. Occasionally, you could see an unguarded moment where someone let her face relax for a moment before hoisting it back into a grinning mask. "I'm enjoying myself! OMG, this is mad!" It all looks like such hard work.

I walked and walked and walked, as far as the South Shore, but there were no buses as the prom's being done up; then gave up and got a taxi. Eleven pounds! It'd be five or six in Lancaster.

I needn't have worried about how it would go socially, sitting and dancing by myself. Several people came over to say hello and to shake my hand, and the female of the organising couple asked about my journey.

In any case, everyone is there to dance, which, as you might deduce from the picture, can sometimes get a little flirty, just as dancing is supposed to be. "Can I just say," I said, as we bumped into each other outside, "that you're wearing the best dress of the evening? Where did you get it from?" Always a good idea to comment on a woman's clothes. Makes you sound a bit poofy and therefore makes them relax. (Debenhams? That's become a lot less frumpy than I remember it.)

A few days before I was on a dancefloor not half-chatting up someone else, Trina and I had a wined and coal fired evening playing the Dictionary Game.

Just in case you want to play it yourself with the words I got, I won't give the definitions here, but I will put them in the first comment below.

anetic
heteroclite
grangerize [possibly unhelpful hint: despite the spelling, Granger is a proper noun]
geogony
hobby (give a sense other than "pastime", and not that of a compound)
formication
engrail
heaume
leguleian

And my favourite, which along with "anetic" will be used on this site when the occasion arises...

deturpate

Any woman who can sink a bottle of wine (and then some) in the course of an evening while playing the Dictionary Game, who likes dancing to the same music as me! and who is a bit of a goer, doesn't deserve angry emails like the one I sent her, even when I am rather vexed.