I ignore advice to take my girlfriend to the chip shop

I have been much provoked over the last couple of years, by the next door neighbour, who cannot resist muttering something insulting as he walks past me. Recently, it was "you're sick you are," after me and Mel had emerged from my flat and made the mistake of bidding him a good morning.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a dramatic escalation of hostilities. I was sitting outside my flat on the balcony, listening to the Test Match, when he walked past and muttered "fucking weirdo" in a stage whisper. I let that go without comment or reaction, as I have similar comments on many occasions.

But when he came back up and started taking photographs of me with his phone, I exploded, leapt at him and tried to wrestle the phone from his hand, which I intended stamping under my foot. Unfortunately he was taller and stronger than me, but I kept up a verbal barrage at him for a minute or so, conveying my opinion that he was a fucking miserable cunt.

I thought we had reached a détente, but he hung about on the threshold of his flat and asked me more than once whether I came from the north, as if we're all pals now and can start discussing our favourite films. "That's your flat, this is mine, now fuck off," I replied.

Although I haven't been troubled since, the incident unsettled me, and I sent an email to the scheme manager saying that I'd like it recorded. It happened a couple of days before she left (to work in a supermarket) and the complaint might have fallen down the cracks; and in the strange way that men sometimes respect violence more than civility, I hope we have arrived at a state of mutually-assured silence.

I've been offered an interview for the same menial job I'm doing now but in the Infirmary at Lancaster. It falls on an awkward day -- I'll have to go up and back in the same day, then do a day's work, before going back up the following day, because house music maestro Todd Terry is gracing our little provincial town. I just hope the place is packed for him -- I remember when Justin Robertson played Lancaster, at the height of his fame, and we had an acre of dancefloor each.

Mel is off having a couple of weeks on the Greek island on which she has spent most of her life, where she plunged two English boys into schools where they learnt Greek by immersion and the overwhelming desire that an eight-year-old has, to fit in.

A couple of days before she left I suggested a send-off for her which I designed around her likes -- a walk, a drink, and a home-cooked meal. We set off, with a map I'd copied by hand off openstreetmap, up the Frome, into the biodynamic half-marathoned suburb of St Werbergh's -- and got intercepted by a Guyanese woman who asked us where we were going, then immediately assuming the dom role and unconsensually lead us on a walk on a similar route of her choosing, which was enjoyable if rather disciplined and hurried.

We were deposited in the cafe next to the city farm, a curious building a bit like a melted adobe, popular with yummy mummies and their papoosed "partners". I was itching to get us to the Vic, the more working class pub of the two in the suburb. When we arrived one of my young hospital colleagues was serving behind the bar, with her glinting smile, managing the men, dispensing beer and bonhomie, and getting sexier with every pint.

I had promised Mel ratatouille-stuffed crêpes. I went to get us another drink while Mel sat outside. "I've promised me bird this fancy French meal tonight," I announced to the sympathetic group round the bar. "I'm not sure how far this plan's going to get to be honest." "Take her to the chip shop," was the advice.

When we got back, I forced myself to make at least the ratatouille and we ate it with homemade bread, and drained the wine. I'm not in love with her, but I'll miss her.