Not for the first time, I find someone's wife attractive

Me and Mel got the lergy at the same time I think.

Her Aussie friends were over two Saturdays ago. Kev had procured these cannabis sweets which mimic, at least in flavour and appearance, those bittersweet rubbery snakes of English childhood.

I was in a giddy mood soon after we arrived down the Suffolk Arms. At one point I had to correct myself when I started finding Kev's wife attractive: her dry, funny comments, her sandy, untrammelled hair and her slender "figure", to use a word one only ever hears from women and art critics. I wished Kev and Mel could disappear for a minute so that we could have had an inconsequential snog.

The young people behind us seemed to be bemused by these dancing oldies, perhaps wondering what we were on. Me and Mel made a complete hash of trying to use the juke box, poking inconsequentially on illuminated buttons for so long that the machine took the matter into its own hands, playing its own choices.

On the Monday, Mel said she felt a bit rough and had tested positive for the lergy. Just to placate her, I took a test. To my astonishment, it came out positive. Scenting an opportunity to get out of work, as I took a pillow and suffocated the other voice in my head which was asking me about who is going to pay for such indolence, I took another test a few hours later with the same result.

We've spent seven full days with each other at hers, where she's been feeding me delicious food, beating me at Scrabble and Gin Rummy and us watching an incomprehensible State of Play on dvd, the resolution of which I found confusing. I was surprised at how little I resented being holed up with her (although we stretched the meaning of the word "isolation" a little, with walks down the disused railway line and trips to the shop).

To my disappointment, I got my second negative test on Monday so told work I'm out of purdah and went down the pub, had a few pints and did some speed, and had the lovely experience of a swervy, windswept scooter ride home. Some cunt in an Audi came a bit close, irritated perhaps at his imminent loss of dominance as the balance of power shifts away from cars, but also some gracious nods from more considerate drivers letting me go first round an ambiguous roundabout.

I rang Kirsty to share my pleasure that our twice-postponed family holiday in Brittany might go ahead this year following France's decision to let the be-poxed British back in. The conversation meandered into me telling her about a book I'd asked for from my mum for my Christmas present. Never heard of the author, it just got a good review in the LRB. Annie Ernaux's Exteriors.

"Is it intellectual wank?" she said.