Jesus saves

Me and the girls had a very enjoyable day in Manchester on Friday. The frisson that comes from stepping out from the station into a proper big city like Manchester, never palls. We went to On The Eighth Day, one of the oldest vegetarian cafés in the UK and reassuringly conservative, with its male waiter with his hair tied up in a bun, and some right-on ethno-techno muzak over the PA. I signed a petition asking Manchester City Council to pass a by-law making it illegal to give out plastic carrier bags for free.

We went round Affleck's Palace, a large old warehouse full of teenagerish stalls selling badges, T-shirts, secondhand clothes and other subcultural paraphernalia. I bought a strange Jesus bracelet, I don't know who for, and a pair of earrings made from plastic clementine segments, which my Mum will like. When we got home I showed the bracelet off to the girls. "Oh yeah, they were quite trendy about a year ago."

Then it was straight over to mine to get ready for Kitty and Chris's joint birthday do at mine. One of the felicities of the evening was ogling seeing Karen "Nice tits" again. She turned up with a huge homemade cake for Kitty. Melanie came up from London, and Helen, who had to be in the country anyway, was over from Norway.

We acquired a couple of unknown men. One was a pleasant, smiling chap who kept saying that was just going off on a tangent and that he felt happy to be here because he can really be himself. Later, he went off on a tangent in Helen's hotel bedroom.

Smiley Man brought this friend of his who had that lack of social competence and interest in others common amongst members of historical re-enactment societies. I can see the black T-shirts and loud discussions in Wetherspoons about war game tactics now. In the kitchen, he drew himself up and announced to a hapless guest that his Celtic name is such and such, his Roman name is something else, and his Viking name is something different again. By something o'clock he was asleep and snoring on the settee.

Barry rigged up the music, with a proper amp and speakers. It made me anxious, thinking about next door and Tom trying to sleep upstairs, and I kept surreptitiously turning it down. I was worried about the noise all night, as there was a lot of banging of the front door as people went outside to smoke.

Trina and me went to bed at about 7.30 and got three hours of "sleep", and came down to tell the still continuing party that we were off. First, a Wetherspoons breakfast, a sunshiny bright and smiling affair, full of shift workers and wedding parties glad to be let off the leash to be drinking at 11am; and then to Leyland for the Soulful House weekender.

The music sometimes veered about in style a little too much for me, but that gave us plenty of time to sit in the pleasantly crowded bar and chat. Trina was being very affectionate, and the carpet started to take on a life of its own. On Sunday morning, we declined the £10 hotel breakfast and went to Tesco's in Leyland instead, where we got earwigged by one of the local loons, who was keen to explain some writing on an envelope she had.

Back here and we had a rocky couple of days as we bumped ourselves through the seratonin and dopamine crash and her stew of neediness and the painful awareness that I can't reciprocate her feelings. Only a few hours ago I thought it might have ended altogether, and so I sent off an email on the dating site to see if Irish Lawyer was still around.

Trina has spent today being conciliatory. I told her that all the post-dancefloor stress could have been avoided had she gone home on Monday, hoping that she might infer from this my desire to spend less time with her when we have nothing in particular planned. I lack the psychological strength to relate to you the tedious detail of the negotiations, but I am hoping that we have agreed upon a modus vivendi which might increase the ratio of the times we both enjoy. Although if I am honest, a part of me was hoping that this might have been the end of it.