On Chesil Beach

Me and Mel went to Weymouth for a couple of days. It's an old-fashioned family seaside resort, with proper cafes serving enormous breakfasts that come with chips. There was a civility about it that is unknown in many English seaside towns.

My Housing Association has a network of guest flats you can stay in for £15 a night. One day was hot and sunny -- ice creams on the beach; the next was freezing, and my hands went a pre-death blotch of dark blue and creme. We went to Chesil Beach, which is impressive if you like miles of pebbles. I was relieved when Mel called the expedition off. We sat in an old pub which had had its history scoured out of it, where they remove the cutlery and napkins before you have a pint.

Back in Weymouth I used my pubdar, which unfailingly locates the best pub in any town within half an hour. I had to do some gentle persuading to get Mel into the Looks A Bit Rough Inn.

We met a couple who used to drink in my local in Bristol, before it was ruined by the new landlord. He's already got a pub up the road, all rainbow flags and inclusivity, and took down the Irish flag over the bar, removed all the Celtic and Hibernian memorabilia and the Guinness, and replaced the Bass at £3.80 with Ponytail and Bun Craft Lager at £5.25. It's dead now. I've just looked in, Friday evening of a Bank Holiday, and there's one person in.

We bumped into them a couple of times later on. When we parted I went to shake his hand, which I don't think he was expecting. It was only a momentary awkwardness but it preyed on me a bit that I'd misperformed our parting. I don't like saying farewell by doing some sort of airy waving away, especially as we'd been sharing a couple of tales over a few pints. They've got a severely disabled son and they'd managed to get a precious three days away from all the saliva.

The following day we went there again, a couple of hours before the train left. There was a party of (white English) women there with balloons and cards, when a distinguished looking Indian man walked in carrying a tureen of something. They started laying out a buffet, and I wondered whether we should leave. The "Indian" man, who sounded like he came from Hampshire, said "it's my wife's 60th, and if you'd like to stay, please help yourself to the buffet." Alas, we had to get our train.

I had a leak coming through from the flat above me the other week. For several days I thought it was the fridge, but I couldn't find anything wrong with it. Eventually I traced the source to a hole around a pipe entering the airing cupboard -- which is where I store my flour. I have a breadmaker and buy 25kg sacks of it, for economy, and the leak had wetted the bottom of the sack.

Once it was all sorted the scheme manager sent me an apology, and said she'd ordered me another 25kg of flour. Later, she popped in with a £50 Tesco voucher. To be honest I'd exaggerated the extent of the spoilage and probably only a couple of kilos is unfit to be used; so now I have almost 50kg of flour in my flat. If you'd like an organic wholemeal loaf, just let me know. There's some rhubarb wine as well.