Nothing to see here

My brother, knowing I am soon to be working in the only country that'll have me -- Wales -- sends me a touchingly unnecessary present of a Teach Yourself Welsh paperback from 1960. By Lesson 21, I should be able to say in Welsh "I was not playing piano in the parlour."

On Friday, being free from work until my return to the railway on Tuesday, I decided to scooter up to Westbury-on-Trym, a suburb that has a villagey feel, and is charming (for an afternoon anyway). I sat in a large park, stroked some friendly dogs, said some polite afternoons, drank a couple of bottles of cider and had a long phone chat with Kim. It was all calm. You expected Janet and John to come out with their mummy at any moment.

I set off to Mel's friends' house. There was a wee do going on with a couple of their rellies.

In central Bristol, on a narrow street just off the city centre, someone had set up a drum n' bass street party, more nitrous oxide than Battenburg cake. I went into the bar right outside the bottleneck created by the ten-foot-high speaker system and asked the barmaid what she thought of it. She wanted to say the right thing but clearly wasn't a drum n' bass fan. She said they'd got a licence for a Jubilee street party so it was all legit.

A bloke offered me some coke and tipped it into my hand. He said he could get me a half for twenty-five pounds so I went off and got the money, only to find he'd disappeared. Someone else was selling whippies -- nitrous oxide balloons -- which I find difficult to get the full effect from -- but I had a couple and it was funny seeing lots of people waggling them about in their mouths. It reduces people to children.

Time to go though. As I sped up a road, too fast, bit drunk, a little coked and nitrous oxide-ided, I swerved to avoid a pothole and then came erratically down onto the road. A car stopped and the woman asked me if I was OK, as did some young men on the riverbank. I so wanted to be polite to them, and return myself to sobriety that I said "yes yes", and asked the latter if they'd been fishing.

I carried on to Mel's friends' house but soon had to leave. I was shocked at the state of my bloodied hands, and was soon fading, trying to talk but making an exhibition of myself by doing so. got home, and went straight to bed. In the morning, I saw spatters of blood all over my tee shirt, and these stinging hands, short of skin, which still hurt now, four days in.

On Sunday I went to Mel's. "You kept saying 'it's a learning curve' at Tina's. You said that the last time you came off your scooter. Anyway, what are you going to do with those hands? You can't..." and she pushed her be-bra'd frontage forwards. When we hugged, I clasped her between my forearms.

I'm not over-keen on going out dancing by myself, so I post on a local forum.

There were many replies but none that have turned into an actual night out yet. Some people have said "come and say hello at my gig", but although I welcome the friendly intent, I wasn't fishing for invites to hang around a DJ booth awkwardly for five minutes before going back to the solitary condition I was hoping to escape.

Tuesday, and it's half past two now, when the second part of my online induction for my new job was supposed to start on the hour; but no signs of any activity. The company's inefficiency makes me think I might fit in.