I had the children for the weekend When she got back she asked me what I'd do if she moved to Newcastle. Somewhat unthinkingly, and the wrong side of a bottle of Spanish plonk, I said "Well, move near you of course. I wouldn't want to be away from the children."

I regret saying that now. Of course I want to be near my children. But I haven't got the energy to do yet another move and spend years getting to know people, smiling at people in adult education classes and hovering on the edges of groups hoping you'll get included in the invites. I've got some close friends here, relationships I've built up over a long time, and a larger network of people I'm on speaking and drinking terms with. It would be reckless to leave this house. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about this, but it's good of Kirsty to discuss it with me at quite an early stage.

I unexpectedly met Gaynor at the bus stop so we met up in the pub later. I was talking quietly about girl troubles and Kirsty's question, trying to keep my voice down as I thought the next table were eavesdropping, where a steamy conversation about DNS servers and firewalls in Linux was developing.

The Hungarians arrived back with some food from Budapest, so I now literally have a Hungarian honey in the house.

My first job, when I was 17, was publicity assistant at a local theatre. Rachel was the manager and used to take me in her car after work to see her favourite tree. It was awkward, as if I was expected to become part of her consciousness. We bumped into each other the other week at the railway station and arranged to meet up in that slightly obliged way you sometimes feel when you've pushed a conversation further than it should have gone.

In her modern flat, a smoke alarm beeped loudly at irregular intervals. Considering we had 30 years to go through, I found out little and I thought her quite guarded, so I tried to reflect her way of talking back to her: saying nothing more than I'd tell a stranger at a bus stop but making it sound confessional. There wasn't even the consolation of much drink: the bottle I'd bought went unopened while we made laborious progress through two glasses of wine. Afterwards, feeling a bit stifled by propriety, I was glad to find two good friends in the pub. We chatted in a way which Rachel would probably think vacuous.

Infinitely better was the soul weekender in Blackpool. I hadn't been away with these friends before and was slightly nervous as to how it would go. It went swimmingly, once we'd sneaked more people into the hotel room than its advertised capacity. No aggro, no girls being bothered, with everyone very polite, apologising for the slightest even theoretical shortcoming in meeting the highest standards of courtesy, as doors were opened, people waved first and priorities sorted out at the bar.

At lunchtime, about thirty of us sat round and drank and chatted and watched Arsenal v Leeds on the TV, did the crossword in the most popular paper of the weekender, The Independent, or simply sat in a semi-meditative state: companiable company that asks nothing of you. After the footie I went to resume dancing and saw that the DJ had parked a pram next to the decks.

I danced and danced and danced. Danced until my feet were throbbing with the soreness of sock-friction and the ache of my arthritic left big toe. Dancing comes naturally to me. I'm good at it and I don't think I'm ever as happy as I am on a dancefloor: the big rich sound of the music, your clothes, other people's clothes, the momentary blindness that the lights give you, the drugs, the colours, and most of all the myriad connections with people to whom you signal your recognition, very subtlely, kinetically. A girl started talking to me. Kev tactfully ambled off the dancefloor and the girl said "Oh, I'm sorry, have I annoyed your boyfriend?"

I got back on Sunday, everything feeling a bit sad. I had some homemade cheese and onion pie which tasted of metal. I went down the pub, hoping to meet someone to stop thinking about the weekend ending, found no-one, and came back and tried to drink the comedown away.

Letters I received in a single day (5th Jan):

From my credit card company: "You have failed to make a minimum payment." They want 242.88 "immediately".

From the Council: "Our records show that your Council Tax payments for 2010/11 are not up to date. YOU ALSO HAVE AN INSTALMENT OF 119.00 DUE ON 01.01.2011."

From my mobile phone company: Outstanding amount: 19.13. "...If we don't receive your payment immediately, we'll be taking the following steps..."

From a debt collection agency: Outstanding balance: £2,860.25. "Despite our previous letter, we are disappointed to note that your replayment arrangement remains in arrears."

From the gas company. "Despite previous reminders, our records show that we have still not received payment for your gas bill. Your account details will now be passed to our debt collection representatives who will visit your premises to disconnect your gas supply or fit a prepayment meter at your premises if safe to do so."

Yesterday, the University also emailed: "OVERDUE TUITION FEES 2010-11. "...a late payment administration charge of £20 has been
added to your account as payment was not received by the due date."

Paid the gas, paid the debt collector. The credit card can wait: my credit record can hardly be worse than it already is. And I survived for over 40 years without a mobile. The Council Tax and the University are the awkward ones, although there's a hardship fund for students I could apply to.

It's time-consuming, dealing with all this. I'd guess a total of a day a week goes into fencing emails and phone calls, maintaining constant vigilance over my bank account (I'm not allowed to go overdrawn and if three payments bounce they'll close my account), and deflecting innocent questions. "No thanks, I'm a bit caffeined out. Water's fine", Training your mind not to think about it. Especially at night.

It won't always be like this.

Sherry, I have decided, is an unfairly maligned drink. Seriouscrush got me a bottle of the posh stuff, Manzanilla, which was lovely, although I preferred my El Jerez Economico de Spar.

Christmas itself went very well. I enjoyed being with Kirsty and the children. I'm happy to be a father now. I'd never have said that two or three years ago. The other day my daughter Jenny, aged 12, income, £2/week, asked me what I'd like for Christmas. Trying to think of something in her budget, I said a ruler. On Christmas Day, a scratched secondhand 6" ruler from her own pencil box turned up wrapped under the tree.

After Christmas I went to my parents' in Middlesbrough and braced myself for a few days of sobriety and politesse, as no-one drinks, swears, takes the name of Our Lord in vain, or makes jokes about the things worth making jokes about. Although we did nothing but sit around, everyone was chatty and in a good mood. But I couldn't help looking forward to my escape after a couple of days. I wanted to escape the stifling central heating, which my parents have turned up to simulate a summer afternoon in central Africa, but mainly because my Dad's getting more and more difficult.

My brother, philosophy teacher in a secondary school in Australia, was being interestingly enthusiastic about re-reading An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and thinking about how he could teach free will and determinism to 11-year-olds. My Dad cut in about the trouble in Korea. We stopped our conversation, turned to his topic, and he said that the Russians were behind it all, and "it'll be those Jews with all their money."

Later, and coming downstairs after looking at some photos with my sister's boyfriend, I took a free seat next to him and he immediately said "I don't talk to you." Perhaps he felt aggrieved that I hadn't paid sufficient attention to him, but it's quite difficult to thread a normal conversation through the weave of his blokey humour, his anti-Semitic remarks and his idiosyncratic take on world events. Everyone pretended they hadn't heard it and started talking again. Esther, my sister-"in-law" said that he's often been very rude to her so at least in that respect he doesn't discriminate.

Me and my sister were talking about it in the kitchen when they'd gone to bed. She said that he's getting more paranoid. He's by my Mum's side all the time and thwarts her every attempt to have a minute or two to herself. He tags along with every little escape bid to the Post Office or greengrocer. He's completely dependent and will fall apart if she dies first. Just before I left, my Mum, in front of everyone, said "Do you like coming here, looby?" "Yes, of course I do," I started. "Of course he's not going to say he doesn't like it," said my brother's wife. I felt like an inanimate specimen being talked over.

On the way back I missed one train accidentally and two more deliberately whilst in a lovely pub in Hexham. Being on my own, a still atmosphere, the local ale, people chatting sotto voce.

I had a rather awkward supervision meeting in Leeds. I knew I hadn't done enough work, but for almost two weeks I was in Huddersfield (which was bona fide research), there's been some desperate financial stuff to sort out, there's been no internet or phone in the house for ten days, and there is the small matter of helping to look after my children. In an exquisitely British and understated way, I felt a bit told off.

Afterwards, trying to banish the feeling by doing something that would only increase it, I went for a drink in the Angel. A girl who looked about 14 walked in in boots, a thigh-length Santa dress and a Santa hat. "That's a bit racy for a girl who hasn't done her O Levels yet," I thought. Then I saw that she had a pint in her hand and heard her say to a man feeding money into the fruit machine "Are you coming for a fag?"

On Monday I went to Felicity's house, where I felt out of my depth with the way that her teenage children speak, missing all their references and slang. One of them said "doss" in a context where "to laze about" made no sense at all. Exasperatedly, 17-year-old Sharon said "No, not that 'doss'. Dos, two! Everyone knows that!". Sharon kept the needling up all day, fastidiously keeping a hair's breadth from outright rudeness, but at breakfast the following day, she said, unprompted, "You're alright looby", so I must have passed.

Me and her mum spent the day making truffles and Christmas presents. I was quite touched actually: she'd dug out a lot of stuff that her daughters had no further use for which could serve as, or could be turned into, presents. I made The Box of Fascism, an old hundreds and thousands container covered in silver paper, which comes with an instruction leaflet warning of a decade-long Europe-wide conflict, together with sillier and more absurd consequences, if the box is opened.

Last night, intentions to keep it Platonic with Frances were discarded. She made a leek and potato pie, then organic salmon and roast vegetables; I did an apricot flaugnarde (I thought it was a clafouti but apparently a clafouti must be made with cherries: if it uses something else it's a flaugnarde).

We chatted on the sofa and I made what in retrospect was the right move, to sit cuddled up to her with my arm round her. This morning she said how much she preferred it that I didn't sit primly at the other end of the sofa like last time.

The Hungarians leave today for Christmas. I didn't plan having three foreign strangers moving in but I'm happy at how it's worked out.