Renting is a bit shit

Friday evening I was at the Town Hall, "showing" as one says in the drinks trade, some beers at a local wine company's Christmas tasting. It's a great gig. I get paid expenses which more than cover my hotel, and I get to sample a dozen uncommon beers. It's a dressy night, popular with women around my age.

Several weeks ago, Fitbit expressed an interest in coming, and surprised me by asking if she could stay in my hotel room afterwards, adding quickly the expected stipulation. "Don't worry Fitbit, it'll be like sleeping with your little sister."

I rang the organiser. It had long since sold out, and there was a waiting list, but he agreed to let her in if we pretended that she was helping me with the stall. He couldn't issue her a ticket as he'd sold the quota that would keep him within the fire regulations.

Five days ago, she texted (not even rang) to tell me that she'd "forgotten" that her ex-sister-in-law had invited her to a "pamper night" in a hotel near Skipton. "I'm gutted that I won't see you tonight," she texted. No, you're not love, you've chosen not to see me.

I told her that I was a bit pissed off with her, given the efforts I'd made to get her in, but she suggested meeting up the following day at 2.00 in The Shipbuilder's Armpit. At 2.40, she texted "be right there love!" And that's the last I've heard from her, my calls and texts going unanswered.

It was dosing day, and I could feel something lovely waiting to be welcomed in, which wasn't going to happen in the Shipbuilder's Armpit, with the objectionable ex-copper who thinks he still rules his bailiwick, now shrunken to a banquette in a cheap pub. He always tells me that a vacant place anywhere near him is taken. "No you can't sit there, they're coming back." "Sit there looby," overuled his friend.

At 4.00, I gave up, went to The Fur Coat and No Knickers Arms and read The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and the Preludes. But first, I wanted to state my case to Fitbit.

"Fitbit. This is the second time in two days that you've let me down. I put a great deal of effort into coming to see you, but I'm starting to feel like a sucker. Little reliable looby. If we bump into each other when I'm in Lancaster I would happily go out for a drink with you, but I am not making any more arrangements to see you."

I texted Wendy and Kitty: "Oh Wendy/Kitty, you must try this. It makes everything gentle and lovely. So wish you were here! xxx "

It was raining and I had the urge for the raw vegetables for which LSD serves as a gateway drug. I bought a cauliflower, a red pepper, some cherry tomatoes and a few dried apricots for an al fresco tea. I bumped into one of my oldest friends in Lancaster, as I was walking along, chomping on cauliflower florets like sweets.

Then the something lovely thing happened: Wendy rang. Her and Kitty had half an hour to spare and wondered if I was in town. We met in the arthouse cinema's bar, where I had soda water: not for show, just because I didn't fancy a drink.

Kitty looked worn out with having to carry a very overloaded plate for a long time now -- a mourning and needy dad, a recalcitrant teenage daughter and a poorly-paid job in "education" that is much nearer social work of a sometimes distressing kind. Wendy was witty, pisstaking and gorgeous. Wendy had to go and I had another ten minutes or so with Kitty. I told Kitty, honestly, that I love and care for her.

That night I was staying in an airbnb in Carnforth -- a town utterly miserable and without culture. I so wanted her to invite me back for an hour or so, and later found out that they did indeed spend the evening together with a few bottles of wine, careful in the cinema bar to avoid telling me of such plans; but it's too early in my probation to expect anything else. It puts a hurtful twist into my stomach, felt all the more keenly because of their evading telling me until I was safely away in my room in Carnforth.

I paid my rent the other day: £450 (for a room, not a flat, let alone a house). On Monday my landlady texted me, asking me to buy some toilet rolls, "as we're out."

"I can certainly buy some toilet rolls, but I'm in Lancaster until the weekend, and aren't toilet rolls included in the rent?"

"No they're not. We'll get some." Can't you feel the petulance?