One-sided

I have declared Winter; the first of the wood the neighbours have given me is spitting away in the fire, heating the room in a lopsided Victorian way: one side of your face glowing, the opposite leg stroked by a draught, against which all measures are naught. But infinitely better than the in-arrears, desiccated cloy of central heating.

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Trina sent me an email which started by saying that she was pleased that she no longer feels any romantic feelings for me. That's a fucking relief. She then informed me that my behaviour towards Donna was "very unfeminist" and that I "treated/treat Donna like a sex object and a whore." The email then swerved back to say that "nevertheless", she is looking forward to our planned orchestrics.

I ignored it. I was more interested in inviting Wendy and her daughter out to the fireworks at Kirkby Londsale. They're better than ours: in Lancaster, Council lackeys go around with buckets of water, taking sparklers off children.

I accidentally sent the text to Trina, therefore lighting the blue touchpaper. I was told, in unambiguous language, that I hold Wendy in higher regard than her, and was twice invited to fuck off, one of which was spatially and affectively qualified with the phrase "out of my life." She also said that she'd read a letter from Mary-Ann (with whom I am in regular correspondence), but assured me that "I don't mind about Mary-Ann. All she goes on about is her [private problems]." I was silent over this as well, partly out of renewed shock at her egregious ignorance of how unacceptable it is to read other people's private letters.

In the morning, the usual abject apologies, urging us to take "little steps at a time" to "rebuild"; explanations involving drink, and thanks extended to me for being "fair and patient" -- and so on, and on, and cyclically, on.

She wanted to drive up and take me out for a pizza "to make this up to you." She proposed coming back to mine for a bop in the bedroom. I told her I thought it best if we called it a day after our tea. She did come back to mine for an hour or so, but eventually I did that prayer-like clasping of one's hands and a bright "Oh well...", which she understood as her cue.

Back at hers, probably deluding herself that we are rebuilding through pizza, she hit the Merry Tablets. In one of her texts, she looks back in detail upon an episode from our sexual past. Reading it, I turn my head away from the screen.

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Donna rang tonight. She'd been on a successful first date with a man from Milton Keynes. After an hour down the pub, they went back to hers and they put up flatpack furniture in two hours of Carry on Screwing British DIY innuendo. I told her that I am not drinking in November. "I'm glad you're stopping drinking for a while, looby." "Oh dear," I laughed. "Was it that obvious?" And then she said the first of...

Three things I was skippety-happy to hear this week: 1) Donna: "I like you and I care about you." That was an eye-glistener. "I like you too Donna. Very, very much."

2) Overheard from the living room after I'd cooked the girls' tea on Saturday. "Mmm, roast potatoes. Dad's good at them."

3) Bumping into the former director of a performance space located in a higher education establishment not far from here: "Yes, you and A--- were the first people to really get what we were trying to do there."

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I've got a date on Tuesday in Manchester. She's 5'11".