"We will never win the Eurovision Song Contest again"

Saturday afternoon. I'm in a crowded pub in Loughborough, pleasantly dazed with tiredness with my second pre-5am start in 48 hours. Eldest is at the University's Open Day. It's a strange accent, as difficult to place as the area -- the "East Midlands". A woman hands a man her bag. "Oooh blimey, that's heavy. What have you got in there?" "Slug killer."

I had my interview at the betting shop. I changed my jacket so came out without any money or cards, so had to blag it on the train, there and back. I did a maths test which even at its applicant-sifting apogee amonted to asking us to multiple 4.5 by 7. The manager led me up a staircase strewn with disarrayed boxes of paper, like a set for a fire safety hazard film. Minimum wage, no overtime, no enhancements for Bank Holdays, shops open 364 days a year. I'll find out on Wednesday.

I was working at the referendum. I rang Kitty to ask if she could help take the screens and the ballot box and all the paraphernalia up to the church social centre which was to be my station. She said she could do it straight after school on Wednesday, "but shall we have a drink first?" so we sat outside and she told me some tales of Wendy's estranged husband's attempts at maintaining his control over her, using the daughter as proxy and her drinking as the moral high ground.

I felt glowing with sympathy for her as Kitty told me the details. I texted her, knowing that she'd know that Kitty had shared the story with me. "I love and care for you very much Wendy. I want you to be happy, with all the door-opening vistas that you deserve. I am tremendously fond of you." I was implying a criticism of her husband's behaviour, and advertising myself.

She replied an hour later, "And me you. I'm very busy next week but maybe I could sneak you in round the back when [daughter] is in bed."

Text exchanges with Wendy can make me feel crumpled, screwed up like a fisted sheet of A4. She doesn't fancy me; doesn't want to sneak me in to her house for the reasons I'd like. I replied with a levity that was not mine.

Thursday, and voting day in the UK and Gibraltar. Got up at 4.45, was at the polling station by 6. It was in an airy room with large picture windows. I had two poll clerks, one of whom annoyed me greatly. He turned up in jeans and a T-shirt, a ring through his lip, an ugly gargling speech that was difficult to understand, a reluctance to talk to the voters, a droopy-lidded man who wants to tell you things: I learnt that the Ring Cycle has never been performed in its entirety outside of Glyndeboune, the opera house built specifically for its performance; and that I am wrong about the name of the street next to the one in which my children have spent all but the first year of their lives. I imagined his house, all World of Warcraft boxed sets and board games. I steered him into him doing the role which requires the least interaction with the public.

All finished at 11, I got back to the girls' house to follow the results. Eldest wanted to follow it too. Kirsty was all ready to go to see boyf but fetched a sleeping bag down for me. I felt that adrenaline chattiness, ran down my clockwork with a sleep-deprived, glassy, sociabilty. We both went to bed for an hour-and-a-half, then got up again at one o'clock. I lasted until a quarter to six, then was woken again at seven by the other two, who had to go to school. Kirsty arrived back from her night with boyf at about nine, articulately twitchy on sparkle dust, and we talked about it all.

I voted for the frying pan of Remain rather than the fire of Leave, but the Remain compaign came across as a group unable to speak to anyone outside their own class. You can't dismiss people's concern about immigration. It's a subject that the left finds embarassing even to approach, but there are many people in white working class areas that have been made spectators in their own streets, as a functioning cohesive community has been undermined by the arrival of immigrants. The established inhabitants are expected to settle for a mannered apartheid in their suburbs to replace a practical closeness, an instruction which perhaps reflects the middle class preference for distance in social relations.

I went down the pub for a Brexfast pint. Everyone I spoke to thought it was a great move. I went home to see Fuckwit Lodger in the act of moving out. I shook his hand and wished him all the best with a neutral face designed to mask my relief that he is finally out of my hair.