Damsels

Whilst Mel was abroad for a week I had a long weekend with Trina. I told Mel I was going to Lancaster to see Kirsty and my youngest. Once you start lying like this, it indicates a sense of guilty, but not of sufficient an intensity to stop me doing what I'm feeling guilty about.

We had a hedonistic weekend of eating and drinking. In a Spanish restaurant, I asked her why there was a sprout in her negroni, thinking that perhaps this was some sort of Ibero-Anglo avant-garde fusion cuisine innovation that had passed me by. It was the olive.

In the cathedral, we queued up to get in but baulked at the "suggested voluntary donation" of £5 to get in, with a cash desk it would have taken quite a bit of chutzpah to walk past. Why not just say it's £5 to get in?

However, I wasn't put off by the cost of the most expensive beer I've ever purchased: £11.75 for 33cl. But it was for a gueuze, (made only using naturally-occurring airborne yeast) and you rarely see them outside of their Belgian home. Trina said it tasted like lemon juice. We got chatting to these jolly middle-aged men who asked to share our table, who were off to see a band with the unappealing name of The Viagra Boys.

Midnight, and I'm walking home from the station after work. A thirtysomething woman trailing a small suitcase, stops me and asks me the way to the supermarket. "Well, er... it's a bit late, obviously that one down there is closed. There's the 24-hour one up there..." and as I turned to point the way, I saw a tall man on the corner quickly look away, feigning interest in the eaves of a block of flats. Perhaps he was an architectural critic who could only do his research at night, but I doubt it; finally the penny dropped.

"Oh, I see. Are you OK, would you like me to walk with you for a bit?" She said yes and, giving what I hoped would be understood as a "got you sussed pal" look at our student of seventies architecture, I walked with her back towards the station. She said that she was staying in a nearby hotel, but that she wouldn't have the money till half past twelve. I did wonder whether it was now a scam, but we got to the foyer of the hotel, and as I chatted to the Somali security guard ("is she drunk?"), I saw her check in and the receptionist tell her that she could sit in the foyer for a while. I bade her goodnight and wished her a good stay in Bristol.

It's repellent that a woman can't be left alone to walk at night to her hotel. Women as prey. I was glad to have helped her, but angry and very saddened that I had to.

A car tries to slalom its way through one of those half-hearted single lane level crossings near Ludlow. Flips over, blocks the tracks; all trains stopped at Shrewsbury.

I can get home via Birmingham. Taking my repose in the pub in New Street as I wait for the train, this arrestingly attractive South Asian woman walks up to the bar. Late thirties? Black blouse, short-ish straight black skirt, black calf-length boots, and the luxuriant, flowing black hair with which the Pakistanis and Indians are often blessed. The man the other side of me offers to help her take her drinks to her table. A second too late for me. You fucking idiot. Instead of craftily scanning her, why didn't you offer to help?

He comes back. "Are you with that woman?" "No, I just gave her a hand." "She's gorgeous isn't she?" but I don't think he wanted to collude.

I was incapable of letting the matter rest. I went up to them, making it clear that I was only stopping as I was leaving, and said "you look absolutely gorgeous." "She does, doesn't she?" said her friend, and I felt a bit bad about not having considered her friend's feelings.

"Well, thank you!" she said, and that was that. Just for once, I got the timing, the tone and the duration right.