I lose it in Glasgow

Meta: This site had the privilege recently of being hacked. Someone cracked into several files, which were turned from the speckle of punctuation that characterises .php files, into something like a long encrypted email, and learning how to recover the site has been quite a test. I wonder why anyone would want to hack into this?

I'd arranged to go by myself to a new house music do in Glasgow which a DJ I know was running. With less than a week to go, Trina invites herself along, thus dashing my perhaps over-optimistic hopes of a flirty evening with a flame-haired Caledonian stunna.

In the hotel room, it dawned on me that I'd left my computer, my keys, my cards, and my favourite scarf, on the train. Enquiries at the station and with the police proved fruitless.

But I faced the music, and danced, in a groovy little basement club in the Merchant City with a friendly, informed crowd who were enjoying the privilege that comes from being in the know enough to be invited to the opening night. The scenery was excellent: most male house DJs I know have really fit girlfriends, and I can see why Tom -- the DJ -- moved up from Hertfordshire to Stirling to be with her.

Next day, we started drinking at a respectable 11am, with Glasgow already boozing, Wetherspoons in the city centre a luggage park for those wringing out the weekend.

Trina went to get her train, but I still had another three hours before mine, so I moved across the road to a different pub.

Being in a somewhat relaxed state by this point, I joined in with a
couple who were bantering at the bar. I told her she had nice tits; she called me a lippy cunt, and offered me a line and a wedding invite. He lent me his keys for a purpose other than which they were designed. I don't know how I get away with it.

"I've been waiting for her for eight years," he said. "I knew she was married to the wrong man" -- "soh did ah!" -- "and I found out on Facebook when she put her status..." "he pounced on me!" They folded into a laughing sideways nuzzle, which made a stone sink in my stomach. This will never be me and Wendy.

It was Wendy's uncle's sixtieth yesterday, and the plan was that me and Wendy would take the dog up the park and get wasted for a few hours, before going to her uncle's birthday pissup, but she wasn't up to it, feeling ill. She still managed to come over to mine for a bit of rosé. I'd made some potato scones and an apple cake for her and I got a quilt down in case she wanted to snuggle down on the settee. "I bet I look awful, don't I?" She lay down; I longed to curl up behind her.

Her uncle's birthday gathered together a miscellaneous party including Diamond Dave, so named from his years of smuggling diamonds from Angola into Belgium. Someone else was saying about how his mate was worrying about turning fifty. "Well fucking top yourself then," I said, not expecting it to be as funny as they found it.

In four hours, no-one bought me one single drink, while I was buying double brandies and double this, Bloody Mary's and God knows what. All I wanted was a pint of bitter -- a drink which would set someone back 1.75.

Middle daughter went to London on Thursday for a recall audition at the National Youth Theatre. The journey down, normally about two-and-a-half hours, took seven, and she and her friend got stuck overnight in London on Thursday night after Doris blew all the trains from Euston into a ditch. The trains the following day were rammed with people getting back home 24 hours late.

This was taken on her train back. What a scene of delight. A day off work, and nothing employers can do about it.