We are not having it

I have been revolting again.

Teaching Practice Colleague asked me if she should book me a place on the coach to Manchester for the rally marking a General Expression of Disgust at our ruling party. She'd never been on anything like this before, and she texted me saying that she felt a bit nervous about the day ahead.

"Why are you getting in a tizz, lovely? I'm only getting myself into a slight one because of the thought of sitting next to you. I'll just want to kiss you all the time."

We flirt all the time, but I know my place.

On the coach -- Lancaster sent two coachloads of malcontents -- she told me about the worries that had kept her awake, which were only partially about the crowd and being arrested, and more to do with her husband's drinking. She made him promise to give up the drink as a condition of her agreeing to marry him. Women are tragic creatures sometimes, convinced that they can change their men.

She said that she didn't want to lose me in the crowd. "TPC, we will never be apart, not this afternoon, nor in the future." We started planning our economy honeymoon, a night in a tent in her back garden.

Sunday's most kissable leftie

We were hanging around for a long time before we set off; godawful "radical" music blaring out, all crashing guitars and assumed shared attitudes. Our diet was a sensible pre-pack of cherry tomatoes, cheese sandwiches and bottled water. How I wish I'd packed some beer into my bag. There's only so far I can go in a day under the grey pillow of sobriety.

Someone started a chant -- "we're not having it, we're not having it." After it died a natural death, I put my arm round Teaching Practice Colleague and shouted "we are having it." "But I'm a married woman!" she protested, and blushed with too much veracity.

When it finally ended I found a shite pub which served a cold pint for £3.40. The barman deftly changed my tenner for a fiver so it cost me £8.40. I'd done enough protesting by this time, and chatted with some people from Coventry instead.

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I emailed Lesley."Hello Lesley -- I was just wondering if you were still up for tomorrow. It's just that I've been stood up more times than a Russian doll, and I could be on the verge of losing £2.40 here in train fare."

She assured me that she certainly is, and we swapped mobile numbers. She warned me she might be a bit late, "but don't panic." "That's fine Lesley. I'll have a novel I'll be pretending to be reading."

"Just make sure it's not upside down," she said. I took my current read -- Tom Jones -- into the pub and held it upside down.

She was attractive, and attractively opinionated. She's got a Fine Art degree and we talked about subjectivity in artistic judgements. She had an arsey side to her which I liked -- everything with Lesley would be short-term, today, now, just as I like it. But I was drilling myself into the friendzone, I could tell. We went for a mercifully short walk along the shore. I felt silly in my grey pure new wool jacket, Italian trousers and black court shoes.

At the end she said she'd enjoyed it, and asked me -- the second consecutive date that has ended this way -- if I'd like to "connect on Fuckbook," banging home the final nail in the sexless coffin.

It was Wine Club that night. When I got in, I sent her a text. "I don't want to connect on FB. Fuck all that. I'd rather see you again."

That was at half eleven last night, and I will be surprised if I hear from her again.