A Sky Full of Stars

Christmas was lovely. Kirsty's glittering and overfed artificial tree, the cat arching in front of the gas fire, and most of all, my girls back after their first term at their various universities.

On 27th, me and Trina went over to Middlesbrough. My mum enjoys a trip to the Toby Carvery, where we can eat food sweltering under lamps which ferment every airborne excrescence that your average sneezing, coughing, spluttering, nose-picking Smoggy can fling at it.

As part of my New Year's Resolution -- to have the kind of difficulties I want to have, rather than the ones I have in Lancaster -- I started answering ads for TEFL jobs. With her connivance, I'd forged a reference from ... and played the Caring Dad card by explaining the hectares of vacant space on my cv with the unanswerable "full-time childcare responsibilities".

Fifteen applications yielded three interviews, one of which -- for a job in Kazakhstan -- had to be scheduled for mid-carvery. I borrowed Trina's phone and we Instawhatted for half an hour. She rang back to say I'd got the job -- but -- "please could you not tell anyone at the school that you haven't got any recent experience?"

So I'm typing this tonight from my grace-and-favour apartment in Astana, the second coldest, and the gaudiest, capital city in the world. I'm bang in the centre of town, surrounded by Our Glorious President's monuments to himself.

A day later, at the Christmas meeting of the Unholy Trinity, Kitty and Wendy sparkled. "Maybe he'll meet a female yak farmer," said Kitty. "Maybe he'll meet a female yak," said Wendy.

I called in at the The Shipbuilder's Arms, where Les gave me a betting slip. "Your going away present, he said, "because you're a star." The horse, called A Sky Full of Stars, came in at 8/1 and I had a free afternoon's drinking. An ex-Army bloke, as drunk as un-habitual drinkers get on furlough, released his ambivalently friendly grip around my neck only when I reached a pitch of repeated and increasing force to iterate that I was not going to Afghanistan.

The night before I was to leave, sleep was almost impossible. Amongst my preoccupations was The Injunction. Issued by Wendy's ex, administered by her, and obeyed by me. It makes me glower with resentment that both me and Wendy comply with its terms. Wendy can do what she wants, but I'm not going along with it any more. Neither am I waiting on her months-old promise to "sort it out".

Possibly spoiling the pre-departure goodwill, I sent a text to Wendy saying that, as far as my own actions are concerned, The Injunction no longer applies. "I'm fucked if I'm doing all this and then coming back to obey some little twat's orders -- having to hide behind a car when I simply want to drop a card off!"

On the flight out, there was a three hour stopover at Frankfurt. To get out to the big concourse where all the bars and cafes are you have to go through security again, whereupon I was taken aside, in the company of a German gentleman carrying a yard-long gun, because my computer had tested positive for explosives. I've had my finger in a couple of dodgy pies in the past but I'm not a bomb-maker.

They made me switch it on and load it up, and so I stood shaking like a leaf while Herr Flick stood over me with his weapon while it came on.

As soon as the "server not found" message came up on the start page, they let me go. I asked the marginally more approachable of the cops what the problem had been and he unhelpfully repeated "it came up for explosives."

On the second leg, I had a very good spinach and cauliflower curry, plentiful large glasses of red wine, and enjoyable sign language banter with my neighbour. As I went to get off the plane, the man behind me genially poked me in the back to indicate that I was wearing one of my own shoes and one of his.

I arrived in Astana at 5.30am, fending off the predatory taxi drivers picking on foreigners to offer their services at special prices before I was met by the school owner's aunt.

We walked into the car park. The cold was shocking; my trousers had turned into paper. She couldn't find her car for a few minutes, but when we did, she turned the heated seats on, which felt weird. Cold should be a holistic experience.

She kept talking about taking us to "our house", and I imagined us living together, and how secretive I'd have to be about my drinking. We went to the block, where to my partial relief I given a mercifully briefly tour of a flat adjacent to hers. As soon as she left I collapsed into bed.

My body is resolutely refusing to adapt to Kazakh time. It's half past three in the morning here and she's taking me out for dinner tomorrow. Which may well involve something which once had a mane.