The rat's tale

My colleague tells me of the visit from The Environmental Health to our workplace. On seeing the appalling state of the kitchen, he starts throwing unlabelled food away. Karen, the manager, starts crying. I am glad not to be there. A few days later, she's back to her old ways, leaving the salad ingredients and the bacon out all day long, and a general slovenliness which shows in spilt fat left to harden on the cooker, bits of food left strewn over the floor and a daily festival of cross-contamination.

A Chinese man is much amused with the word "rhubarb", and asks me to write it down for him. I get a piece of paper but he says "no, here," and offers his palm to me.

To Lancaster for Easter. Wendy turns up at Kitty's, as glossy as ever in a green velour zip-up top and a green knee-length skirt. I am asked to investigate a persistent smell from the drain in the back yard. I discover a decomposing rat which is host to hundreds of maggots. I don gloves and wash the maggots away with boiling water before burying the rat at the back of the garden. I stride back in, trying not to feel too manly.

Coming back, I can only afford the train as far as Birmingham, and have purchased a coach ticket for the rest of the way; but arriving at New Street and seeing a train to Bristol on the board leaving in half an hour is too much of a temptation.

I get on and approach the guard, holding a print out of my schedule that possibly might look like a ticket, with a cock and bull story about a cancelled train from Preston. "It's OK, go and sit down." When he comes round, he says "oh yes I've seen yours." You haven't seen anything mate but I'm not arguing with you.

Ceci n'est pas un billet

I sit opposite an elderly and exquisitely mannered Indian man. He asks my permission to make a phone call. I can't help but ask him what language he was using, and he teaches me a couple of phrases in Punjabi.

In Bath, at Linda's friends' house, I have expired from several hours' drinking, and am asleep in the converted loft. The accursed need steals upon me.

The loo is a long way away, downstairs. For some reason I decide that a minimalist outfit of a pair of pants will do, and I run down the stairs and through the living room where they are still drinking and chatting. Instead of carrying on to the toilet, I double back, go outside and piss in the garden. Coming back in, I say "it's OK, just stay indoors," and go upstairs again.

I had a second interview over the internet yesterday. I am attempting to restart my career as a trolley dolly on the trains, which I threw away a couple of years ago by turning up a bit tipsy one afternoon. I'm hoping that the railway companies don't share information about applicants who turn out to be drunkards.

I will find out in a few days' time, possibly when I'm on a Croatian island. I'm going with Trina on a holiday that has been postponed for two years but will finally start tomorrow. The organisers take over a hotel for a week and fill it with DJs playing house, contemporary soul, RnB, that kind of thing, till the small hours of every morning. I haven't gone into detail with Mel about the complicated course of mine and Trina's association. It would only muddy the waters.