Clearing out my emails this evening, I ran across a slew of things I'll never delete, to and from Mary-Ann. I skipped over the filth; she (and I think I, though you'd have to ask her), was voluptuously good at that. What I noticed was the way my speech had a tendency to mirror hers.

The idea that one has an authentic voice is, in my socially and geographically nomadic experience, mistaken. Yet when I re-read my emails, and saw myself putting on just a little too much literary effort into my sentences, I want to shake my self of eighteen months ago into a more direct form of communication. I instigated a written correspondence with Mary-Ann a few months ago and I sent my second letter to her last week. A letter is more careful and social than an email.

Trina and I cleared another hurtful pile of rocks today. She has been staying at my house from Monday to this afternoon, but Kirsty is in London with Boyf, so yesterday, Trina and I went round to Kirsty's so that I could get the girls their tea before Trina and I went out for ours. I felt inwardly apologetic about dragging Trina along to my former girlfriend's house to be sociable with my daughters, but it was an easily garrulous hour or so with them and their best friend before they went off to their theatre rehearsal.

Trina and I went down the pub and sank a bottle of wine and a few pints respectively. I took her back to mine, tucked her up on the sofa with an internet connection and free rein of my library, then went back to Kirsty's to do more or less the same with my girls. I wrote Jenny a note for her teacher about why she hadn't done her Science homework, due to her rehearsal, although "No child should ever be required to do homework" was what I'd have liked to have written.

This morning, I saw them off to school, then set off back to mine.

I crept up the stairs. Trina's characteristic bellowing tremored through the door. I smiled, went downstairs and started making myself some coffee. An hour or so later I heard her step on the stairs. "Is that [pet names, endearments] coming down the stairs?" I said.

She looked at me crossly. "You're here! Why didn't you come up?"

"I did, I just thought you might like some more sleep." I was crestfallen.

"You didn't, you must have just come in. I've got better things to do than this. We've only got half an hour before you're off again," she said, referring to my work at the elections.

She angrily gathered her things and without giving me any further chance to talk, stomped off to her car and drove away. I turned on the computer.

[With the content of several ellipses deleted].

You veer wildly from telling me how lovely I am, to going off in a huff because you take umbrage at something I've done, or neglected to do. I only ever do things out of consideration for you and what I hoped would be in your best interest, to give you a good night's sleep. I can't be doing with this blowing hot and cold all the time.

I'm sorry that I didn't come up to check on you but I was only thinking of you and trying to be considerate. I misjudged what you wanted me to do and for that I'm sorry.

I am also fucking sick to the back teeth of apologising all the time for mistakes that I make, that are only ever done with you and your comfort or happiness in mind. "Sorry sorry sorry"--it's all I fucking say.

I don't appear to be good enough for you. Why don't you find someone who can read your mind better, who understands the details of what you want better, because I can't be doing with all this being all loved-up one minute, and then left here alone, looking forward to making you breakfast and chatting and hugging you, with you driving off, the next minute.

As for me having "to go off again", what do you expect me to do? Ring up the Council and say "Sorry, I can't come today, because I know you're providng me with some well-paid work which will pay for my family holiday, but I've got to stay here and hope I don't piss my girlfriend off"? That work is essential to me, you know that, so why are you so annoyed with me doing it? I know the timing's not perfect but I can't tell them when I want to do it.

P.S. You've left your coat here.

Yours, a very pissed off and I think, unjustly wronged, looby, who was only trying his misguided best.

She'd only got as far as her narrowboat a few miles away, and came back. She met me from my break from the elections work. We hugged each other gratefully, even as I knew that I don't--I can't--love Trina, just as I never loved Kirsty, or anyone else. I have never had the experience of what others talk about as "love". We only had a brief time together: we tucked into pizza slices whilst sat on a bench.

She said she was sorry for seeing everything in terms of her being rejected, despite all the evidence I provide to the contrary. Tired at this point by analysis, we rummaged around for comments about the pizza to lighten things up.

Trina is here for a couple of days and we are fucking and eating and drinking. She helps me make the food for our Thatcher party. She bends over to get something out of the fridge and I put my hand on her back to keep her there for a bit. "You're going out with a pensioner," she said. Rock buns in the shape of lumps of coal, my sextastic quiche (I'm good at pastry), cucumber sandwiches, and Prosecco.

It looks good all set out on the tablecloth. The Girl Who Only Wears Secondhand Clothes turned up in moss green flatties, orange tights, a greeny-blue kilt, a thin brown and creme patterned top, with her lovely naturally curled hair scaffolded with hairgrips. I was hoping people might comment on my new cushions but they didn't do so, so I drew their attention to them, then instantly regretted displaying my taste at the cost of their indulgence.

We raise a glass not to Thatcher, but to David Gareth Jones, killed at the age of twenty-six by a blow from a policeman's truncheon during the Miners' Strike. It could have been me. I was there.

---

This morning, early, Trina leaves, fucked. She's left her watch on for some reason. Like when my hand brushed against her earrings the other day, I find the silver jewellery makes me think of her as a slovenly, dirty slut, only good for a fuck until I come, which she will get whether she wants it or not. Combined with an aesthetic thrill of the glint of silver, it turns me on.

On my own, I compose myself for my singing lesson and go through the Schubert song for the hundredthtime. I am nervous, the mixture of performance anxiety and that of a complicated social task, like going on a date. Will he like me? Will I be good enough?

As I leave, I notice an envelope pushed through the door, which I am relieved to have intercepted before anyone else. I let myself out through the back door, in case he's watching the house.

In my lesson, I am nervous and distracted, gabbling to my new teacher about how relatively warmer it has been this week, worrying about whether my neighbour's car had been clamped or impounded.

Afterwards, I walk home and back along my street, trying to simulate the gait of a man who doesn't have to explain to his neighbours why their car has been towed away. To my relief, the car is untouched, and I go inside to read the letter more closely. It's a cunning attempt to get me to sign a Walking Possession Order, which would give the bailiffs unhindered access to my house and possessions.

Wilma rang, asking if I fancied a drink. Having educated myself a little about the meagre rights of bailiffs in English Law, I relaxed with both the beer and her self-orientated babbling, equally welcome. I was in the mood for a friend who doesn't want to know every detail.

Everything is going to be alright. I am going on holiday in a month's time with Kirsty and our girls with money, which I have promised to her, that I will earn from the County Council Elections. I am, and little do they know, Presiding Officer for a Tory-voting village up the valley. I will wear a tie and work twenty-seven hours in two days, be polite and collared with the men, and flirt with the middleaged mums to the extent to which I like how they dress.

I got into a bit of bother in Glasgow a few weeks ago with an art project whose execution attracted the attention of two officers of the law, who apprehended me whilst I was peaceably wandering around a building site with a pair of pliers, two screwdrivers, some thick wire, a few screws and washers, and, unfortunately, a book about Meibion Glyndŵr, the nationalist arsonists who made Wales a warmer place in the 80s, which was simply my reading matter for the train journey and in no way indicative of my intent.

I still want to do the project but its execution will require more thought than I put into the first attempt, which gave McPlod the impression that I had contravened the Trespass (Scotland) Act 1865. But if I'm reading letter this correctly, I think I've got away with the Scottish equivalent of a caution.

We celebrated with a fairly spontaneous meeting down the pub. I'm not keen on it, but I bought a pint of Thatcher's cider, and we toasted her to the now familiar joke about her meeting Jimmy Savile in hell and her asking him why he was there. "For fucking minors," he says. "Yes, me too," she replies.

During the Miners' Strike, we set off from Lancaster at 5am to go to Burnley Colliery, where I enthusiastically joined in the wave of anger against the scabs, throwing half-bricks at their buses. I really wanted to injure them. I wanted to prevent them working the pits, and I wanted to hurt them, as a punishment. Nothing too bad, you know. Maybe concussion, or to see them panic with blood pumping from their strike-breaking heads.

The previous day, Trina and I had gone to see Spirit of '45, Ken Loach's lovingly sad documentary film about the way she dismantled the welfare state and our nationalised industries. The scheduling was an accident, a day after she died. Trina, a lifelong Labour supporter and canvasser, was quite affected by it, and said she was going to leave the Party.

---

A few months ago I picked up a card of a singing teacher. He did his postgraduate training at the RNCM in Manchester and has sung with Welsh National Opera. I explained what I'd like to do.

"i [sic] would be very happy to teach you, especially as you are interested in singing the classical repertoire. I will be able to demonstrate to you very clearly the fundamental concepts of singing and take you through as much lieder as you can manage! My phone number is [---], please give me a call tomorrow or friday if you would like to arrange a lesson."

It's £15 for half an hour, which I can only afford if I refrain from drinking for a couple of hours days at a time. It'll be a good discipline for me, trading the price of booze for a singing lesson. I wish he'd capitalise properly, but it's not a dealbreaker.

A somewhat tense couple of days. They came round again.

My relief that no-one answered the door was equalled by my alarm on seeing that the envelope containing the notice had been placed on the table by one of the lodgers. They only fold the envelope in, they don't seal it; it's a variant of their bullying, in which they hope that your dirty financial secrets will be discovered by other people in the house. I don't know if Bill had read it or not. I wish he had a normal job and was out during the day.

If I knew that I were to be on my own in the house, I wouldn't worry at all. I would secure the house and leave at around 6am, perhaps get the cheap early train to Glasgow and spend the day there. But because Bill is usually in, I had to sit downstairs to prevent them entering.

They tend to visit in the mornings, but the knock at the door came at about 3pm, just as I was starting to untense. I jumped with nerves but instantly went into role. The two inner doors were angled so that they couldn't see past the empty living room.

My vigil was disturbed by the unwanted Bill, who rarely answers the door. Clomping down the stairs he came. I had no choice but to intercept him. "Have you got that?" he asks. "Yes," I said, in a voice that I hoped was quiet enough to be inaudible to the bailiffs.

With all the stealth I could summon, I bent down towards the floor, before slowly rising again to peek out to see who it was. It was the coalman.

"Oh hello," I said, in an access of relief and warmth. I felt like ushering him inside and breaking open a bottle of the 2010 Le Difese Tenuta San Guido Bolgheri which I keep in the cellar for sexy afternoons with Trina. He manhandled the bags of coal into the living room, and left. Shaking, I retreated back into the kitchen.

---

In happier news, there have been a couple of very enjoyable films on lately. Pulp Fiction you'll be familiar with, but Sightseers is a black comedy about a couple who discover an intense erotic and psychological satisfaction through murdering, in bloody and violent ways, people who trangress against their specific standards of behaviour, whilst on a holiday round some of Northern England's more twee heritage sites and tea shops.

It is a very English film, taking to absurdly comic lengths a certain class's repressed frustration at the way that dropping litter or not overtaking correctly become symbols for a lost halcyon age of agreed standards of behaviour. During the film, someone started noisily unwrapping a sweet. I felt like saying "Unwrap that quietly or I'll murder you."

On Saturday, Fiona (my eldest) and I went orienteering up Dalton Crags. We came first out of eight in the white (the novices') course, but then got lost on the orange one. Everyone was friendly and jolly about it as we returned sheepishly to base. The organiser kindly suggested that as novices on an orange trail we'd have fared a lot better with a compass, so we set a course in an Ebay direction that evening.

On the way to the start, we passed a natural woodland burial centre. I collected a leaflet. Apart from the beautiful landscape, the place immediately endeared itself to me when I read that "Inappropriate items at the grave will be removed by the Estate without notice. This includes wind chimes, windmills, toys and so on." I had planned to be buried in Scotforth Cemetery in Lancaster, but I will now be making enquiries at Dalton.