As usual, the glass of Gueuze alerts those of a nervous disposition to the presence of saucy content in the post which follows.

To Prestatyn.

The hotel immediately wanted payment, and we had to fill in a form ticking boxes saying what we wanted for breakfast and what time we wanted it. "Please arrive at your specified time as we cannot keep food warm due to Health and Safety Regulations", it said.

Our room reeked of smoke and the vicious perfumes that had been used in the unsuccessful attempt to conceal this. An ashtray was provided in the room. The single towel provided for me had four holes in it and the dangling bits of cobwebs were of a 1997 vintage. There was no bath, nor even soap, and the tiny room, behind a sliding door, containing the shower and the toilet, was unheated.

The hotel's lavish provision of toiletries.

We went to have a drink in the bar. Trina, with her usual thoughtfulness, had booked it because it's one of the very few places in Prestatyn where they serve real ale. In the bar, I requested a sample of a beer unknown to me. "Well, we're not allowed to really, but seeing as he's away..." The barmaid and I discussed this policy, and she said, "Well his argument is that you can always buy a half and if you don't like it don't drink any more." Posters in an aggressive sans serif said NO PROOF OF AGE - NO SERVICE - NO ARGUMENT. I started feeling that the place was run by a controlling, suspicious, lazy, insecure man who would be better suited to working in a biscuit factory.

We got our drinks and sat down. Trina said she'd gone back internet dating the same evening when she thought we'd split up. Me too.

Within half an hour of her returning to the site she had been contacted by a black man who likes wildlife photography, but without contacting him she changed her profile to say that she'd got back with her "boyfriend" and was happy about this.

Talking, drinking, and stroking each other, we started talking about how much we like flirting. With disinhibited enthusiam I wanted to tell her the details of my flirtations with Fitbit, but, remembering some recent penalties of honesty, I checked myself.

St Asaph has a local reputation for being posh, but The Plough has canned music and 42-inch TVs switching between black people being murdered on some incomprehensible tribal-religious basis, (a bit like Glasgow) and rehashes of bits of tricky foot movement from the FA Cup.

A to-be-married couple, the fiancée's Dad and his new girlfriend, me and Trina. The fiancée was more attractive than I remembered her, with her hair developing a kink in the lower half of its tit-stroking length. Her V-necked top was dark blue and it had white butterflies of varying sizes of it. Her Dad was wearing a thick creme zip-up top. I was a bit pissed on everyone's generosity. "Garstang is a place where you go to give up," I announced, enjoying the audience. "You get to your mid-fifties and think, 'This is all the sex I'm ever going to have, so I'm going to move to Garstang'." "You can talk for two" said Trina, privately.

In our stinking room, Trina went off into a deep sleep, giving stentorian warnings to shipping in Liverpool Bay. I tried to find a place in the bed in which my ribs weren't stamped with the mattress springs, or just lay awake, eyes open, helpless.

In the middle of the night I started thinking about a frequently repeated fantasy, of laying in bed with an asleep Denise. My cock hardens against her arse, but she doesn't respond, and I silently get out of bed, stand by the side and push my cock against her red-lipsticked lips. After gently wanking my cock against her lips, I push it further into her mouth, but meet her teeth. "Mmmm?" She slowly comes to. "It's alright Denise, just open your mouth a bit." "Nnnn... what?" I push my cock into her mouth, watching her red lips move against it. "It's alright. Just suck it darling, just suck it, it's OK." My cock was rigid and I tried to move Trina's hand onto it but she was snoringly, resolutely asleep.

In the morning, I had one of the wretched breakfasts that cheap British hotels serve. White bread, instant coffee, plastic sachets of brown sauce. A 50something minimum wage female skivvy came round to ask if everything is alright. Of course it's not, this breakfast is shit. But I'm not telling you, because you're being paid 6.20 an hour to insulate the manager from any criticism.

We found a cafe which had proper coffee, then set off on a muddied, picturesque route back. We stopped at a country park for petrol and chocolate. I got out of the car and dashed off for a piss round the back of an enclosure where they keep bits of wood and the bilingual signs.

Back in the car we set the sat nav to find the village where her mother was born. She wanted to stop to look at the sign, and made an unnecessary apology for detaining us with her nostalgia.

The motorway was dangerous, full of rainspray. Like all drivers, she thinks of herself as competent and experienced. As a non-driver, I tense with her recklessness, overtaking into a lorry's foggy wheel mist at 70mph. We got to Lancaster and I kissed and held her with an overtone of apology I'm sure she understood. I'm too tired my love, because of your snoring and that journey. It doesn't mean you don't turn me on.

Bother. I thought I'd got away with it.

---

I had the girls for a few days and yesterday evening Kirsty and boyf came back. My eldest is physically affectionate towards him, and seeing them playing together momentarily made me feel uneasy, ousted. But we had a good hour or so: fish fingers and chips, and working our way through a couple of bottles of cheap plonk. I told them about our visit to Cumbernauld, and Boyf said he knows it well, having worked there. We talked about the bottomless pit of public money that is Morecambe, with its ineffective regeneration projects: sculptures of gulls on plinths, poetry carved into the pavement.

Trina's arriving any minute and I hope she'll want us to complete our reconciliation in bed. As is often the case after a falling out, the subsequent desire is stronger. Later we're off to play Modern Families in North Wales. We're going out in that renowned centre of gastronomic excellence, Prestatyn, with her son, his fiancée, his Dad and the latter's new girlfriend. I hope I can bracket out my worries about the bailiffs finding a way into the house.

Glad to have a distraction from the Trina tribulations, I went to an artists' talk at the University with Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard, who have a new video installation there, Jumpers (What Must I Do To Be Saved), about "the religious practice of 'jumping' as a form of worship. Jumping was performed over the course of 200 years from the 18th Century by English, Welsh and American Protestant Christians."

The essential elements of an academic talk in an arts department were all present: the exaggerated laughter from the Faculty staff, almost grovellingly pandering to the artists; the slack timing and late start, as though none of us have anything else to do, with the presenters and the ubiquitous tech guy in proletarian building site boots standing unconcerned with their backs to us.

In the evening, back at Uni, there was some Ch. de Taxpayer for the video's opening, and the Head of Chinstroking, who was talking quite endearingly about the way dancing makes him feel self-conscious, bought me a pint. Then to a concert which in parts felt like being stroked with silk. Chroma played a programme of Ned Rorem, Janáček, Anna Meredith and Dohnányi. Ned Rorem's Winter Pages was lush and chromatic. "Oooh," I said to Steph as it finished, "I felt quite transported there." Anna Meredith's work was a derivative piece of minimalism-lite, and the Janáček was choppy and busy, but then the evening ended seductively with the lapping tide of Dohnányi's Sextet. Apart from a couple of coughers, the Lancaster audience is well-behaved, still and attentive, although it's disappointing that so few young people attend the concerts there. It feels like going to a concert in an old folks home.

Combing through the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra's programme, I noticed Bruckner's Second Symphony coming up in March. A Glaswegian railwayman of my acquaintance is into Bruckner, so I suggested it to him. "I'm on a late that day so I won't be able to make it, but you're very welcome to go with my wife and stay here." Ooer, that's modern.

Edit. Oh no--his wife is an attractive twentysomething Nicaraguan, who lists Borges and Tolstoy amongst her favourite authors, and likes real ale.

---

Trina: her basic objection is that I'm not "committed". "I don't want just to be a nice fuck and then discarded when this hedonistic period ends."

That's a reasonable thing to say. I sent an email saying that I am committed, and that although my enthusiastic appreciation of her irresistible physical charm is very important to me, it is not everything, and the fun we have, the chatter, the gadding about, are all part of it too and I would love to keep all of it going. I also said that my doubts about living together are simply based on several years of living with Kirsty, during which she said "it's like living with an amiable tourist," and a fear of it dulling what we have.

She texted me while I was at the Uni, saying she'd sent me an email, and I had to concentrate hard on C18th Protestant ritual in order not to be itching to read it. It was kind, conciliatory and understanding. Late last night she sent a sexier one too, and this morning one of my favourite songs, which I wasn't aware she knew--Alexander O'Neal and Cherelle's Never Knew Love Like This--was Youtubed to my inbox.

Trina came over for lunch. Her journey was long and difficult, so I made a nice stew and a coal fire. She wanted a shower, and came down with a shawl wrapped round her lovely tits. Afternoon sex, wine, champagne, fairy lights round the fireplace. She gave me a biography of Owain Glyn Dŵr.

Up at 5.30am, we fell asleep on the train to Glasgow. We walked across the city to Queen St station and bought tickets to Cumbernauld.

The accent is softer than Glasgow and very pleasant. We asked a security man the way into town, but as it's a town which separates cars and pedestrians, he was unable to give us more than general directions. However, signs cajole pedestrians to the town centre.

I thought that the place wouldn't be as bad as its reputation. It was.

The shopping centre wasn't exactly welcoming.

But the lift to the shops has a jazzy ceiling

Things must be getting bad: the Pound Shop has closed.

Still, the library's open, at the end of this corridor.

We walked back to the station, past some blocks of flats, and a tip.

We had a much better time in Glasgow, starting with an optimistic bin at Queen St station.

We spent a happy afternoon drinking and talking in the Blackfriars and the Horseshoe Bar, and chatting to a couple from Edinburgh at the next table. I fancied Trina so much. I said I didn't know what love is and how I don't want to live with her, that at the moment, she's an exciting, sexy girlfriend and I don't want anything domestic to make that disappear.

On the train back we slept all the way home. In my bedroom we fell asleep quickly but woke up to a nice sleepy fuck. We dozed off and I realised something was wrong. I ignored it and made us coffee. We went down Wetherspoons for breakfast and I had a pint. At the station I met N who gave me back the bag I'd left round their flat. Trina rushed off to the platform. I apologised to N and went after her. "No, it's alright," she said. "I'll go. You go and talk to your friend." "It's OK--we weren't saying anything of earth-shattering importance." Why is she pissed off with me?

"Can I ring you?" she texted at about 3pm. "Of course" I said, hoping she'd say what was on her mind. I didn't expect her to say that she wanted to end it. It's not the kind of relationship she wants. She didn't like the things I said in Glasgow, and said it's not a caring, committed relationship. I was speechless. I had to go to work at Really Late and texted her from there.

"I want to be with you. I want a future with you. We're different but let's not let that get in the way. Let's talk about this. I want you sexually and going out with each other and talkingly. Please let's not us throw this away."

"My turn to be uncompromising," she replied. "I don't want the life you want. It's not going to work. Best to end it now, really. I am desperately sorry but my mind is made up."

"I wish you every good wish. I'm so sorry. I want you to be happy. I've loved being with you. I've loved every minute of it and I'm desperately sad it has to end. You're lovely Xx."

She didn't reply, and possibly my last ever text to Trina reads "Have a lovely life my darling. I will always care about you and will always want to hear from you Xx."

All the things in my diary, the plans, the days out, the meal in Prestatyn with her friends next Tuesday; the unmade bed where we've had such lovely, kissy, stroky, sexy times.

I had my first drink for a week this evening. This may well be the longest I've gone without a drink since a friend and I from the railway gave it up for Lent in 2006. 2006 was a leap year and so I did forty-one days, better than Jesus.

I was under the impression I had to abstain from drink because of the antibiotics. I resigned myself to ten days of abstinence, and started hitting the suspiciously-named Sainsbury's Grapefruit High Juice Drink - a pleasant slurry of water, aspartame, preservatives and flavourings of the type you're forced into when you're on the wagon. Then one of my dancing/blog pals pointed out that there's only one type of antibiotic you need to be careful of when drinking, and mine isn't it.

Delighted with the news (I wouldn't remain sober from choice for longer than I have to), I eyed up the sexy-looking Italian in my kitchen - the 2010 Le Difese IGT Tenuta San Guido from the village where we holidayed last year, which we had at the wine club recently when it had a look round Tuscany. Very little of the wines of the Bolgheri DOC ever make it to the UK. You'd be lucky to find any in Turin, let alone Lancashire. But that's typical of Adam's assiduous, educated sourcing. Someone managed to get a few cases to Byrne's in Clitheroe, and Adam spotted them. It was a fine way to end a fast.

I'd like to find out from a fluent speaker what "Le Difese" means. "Defences" it says in my little dictionary, but there must be something else: the label depicts a boar being chased by dogs, a romanticised version of the caccia which is the subject of innumerable little warning plaques dotted on gates and posts in the hills around Castagneto Carducci, now more often conducted with rifles.

Wilma then rang, asking if I was going down the pub with a couple of mutual friends; one, a previous boyfriend, who shows a patience towards her of which I would be incapable. The ale tasted like nectar and I held up the glass and wondered aloud at its loveliness.

"He's fucking useless," she said. Roger shrugged his shoulders, indicating all the years of tolerating this sort of return for his friendship. "No hang on, you can't say he's 'useless'. He's been alright to you over the years." While she was on her first bottle of wine, Wilma was great company. By the end of the second, her needle got stuck in the place we've come to expect: her Irish boyfriend who treated her badly, from whom she can't divorce herself, her aggressive yet needy relationship with her daughter, her blaming alcohol for problems. She thinks she's an alcoholic. Aren't we all? "This is not the drug for you, Wilma," I said. "You need to try something else, speed, or--I don't know. Just not alcohol. You're a crap drunk."

---

I know I am better because I've been sexting Trina. We're going to Cumbernauld on Tuesday. It's an early train so she's staying here the night before, when she is going to get fucked.

Any successful relationship, especially a sexual one, is a question of finding a compatible power relation. I spent many sexless years being a "nice man", and thinking that women might chat me up if I sit here with my glass of real ale and the Guardian long enough. First off, it's not me, because I now know that as carefully liberal and considerate as I am by day, in the bedroom, I like to fuck a woman and to do sex to her.

Second, the women I have been involved with sexually, since my Renaissance, like getting fucked. Women love sex but most of them would, at least initially, prefer it if the man took the lead. It's very exciting when a woman starts feeling comfortable enough with you to introduce their own volition, but that takes time.

Woman are sexual creatures who have a sexual drive at least equal to that of men. The idea that men are possessed of an uncontrollable sex drive refused by women is a man's way of explaining a relationship that is sexless for other reasons. An acquaintance of mine sends me "jokes", sometimes accompanied by sterotypical porn pics of the kind of shaved, surgeoned, Americanised woman men are supposed to fancy. "You could try fucking your wife," I feel like saying sometimes