I was telling Wendy about how Trina used to take me to expensive hotels and then, a day or two later, would turn on me, telling me how horrible and selfish I am. "It's not worth it," I said. "Yes," she said. "Take me to a posh hotel and abuse me."

I turned this idea over for a second or two. "What a lovely idea Wendy. If you ever fancy doing that, let me know."

I had a job interview, two days a week on the minimum wage, down a shop "bakery" that sells the kind of pies that microwave cheese into a liquid. "Right here we go then," I texted Wendy, "my job interview. And if I can't get a job in a pie shop, it'll come down to sucking blokes off down Preston bus station."

"Oh ho ho," she replied. "What if you failed at the butty shop, went down the bus station and some horrible old pervert said you're not coming anywhere near my cock :)"

(A minute later): "And then the old pervert says, you can wank my dog off if you wear gloves. Sorry -- bit sleep-deprived."

(Again). "And the dog says I wouldn't let you make me a butty. Anyway, I haven't had the urge since they had my knackers off. So sorry Xx."

Kitty suggested we all go to see I Was A Wife by Polly Lister, a one-woman show about a relationship break-up. She used the idea of being a wife as the most difficult role she'd ever taken on. It was one of the best things I've seen in a theatre for a long time, an episodic, lurching piece that mirrored the way that emotions can swing within seconds in such a situation.

We were all stoned, and to the evident dislike of the woman sat to my left we also commenced the second half with what I thought was a politely discreet bit of refreshment done quietly on wettened fingertips. Wendy got the giggles at one point, laughing loudly and for a bit too long. Polly Lister looked over, wondering momentarily whether she might have to cope with the girl with teary, running eye-liner.

Afterwards, we sat in the bar for an hour or so, drinking the theatre's drinks at Stockholm prices. Wendy had had to tell her ex that she was only going with Kitty; had he known I was there too, he would have meanly truncated his begrudged child-sitting shift even further.

Sitting there in the bar with my two favourite people, I felt giddy and delirious; my affection for them and the sensual pleasure of being with them, indissolubly together; light took on a washed and newly-windowed quality, and every glance and scan of Wendy was novel and sexy. The radiance of her browned skin and the way her tits pushed out her dress slightly so that there was a gap of a couple of inches between her shoulders and her tits where it didn't touch her, but shaded and darkened her beautiful décolletage and cleavage. Her blackly-clad legs, the contrast of the softness of her draping dress over the tight, polymer chemistry of her tights. Her hair, that I want to scrape my fingernails down and through.

Wendy had to pick up her daughter. I went back to Kitty's for a while, and we chatted in her cosy front room, all armchairs and wine and fairy lights and pictures and postcards and glittery low lamps.

Back at mine, I went to bed, but couldn't keep off my hands off my...phone. "I love you Wendy. I love how you look, and how you treat others. I love your witty, dirty, literate talk. I love you from my stomach, like now, when it's so difficult to stop thinking about you. I love you, I love you, I love you Xx."

Predictably, the following morning. "I do apologise Wendy. The disinhibiting effects of drink and drugs strike again, and I'm sorry about having yet again given you practice in deleting my night-time drivel."

"Good morning petal! No need to apologise! Yes, yesterday was lovely Xx"

In a couple of weeks we're going out dancing in Manchester all night. I wonder what she'll say to him then? He'll be powerless though, because her auntie is child-sitting that night and morning. She said that she's bought a new dress for it. Oh dear.

Coming soon: a post that is not exclusively concerned with Wendy.

Meta: This site had the privilege recently of being hacked. Someone cracked into several files, which were turned from the speckle of punctuation that characterises .php files, into something like a long encrypted email, and learning how to recover the site has been quite a test. I wonder why anyone would want to hack into this?

I'd arranged to go by myself to a new house music do in Glasgow which a DJ I know was running. With less than a week to go, Trina invites herself along, thus dashing my perhaps over-optimistic hopes of a flirty evening with a flame-haired Caledonian stunna.

In the hotel room, it dawned on me that I'd left my computer, my keys, my cards, and my favourite scarf, on the train. Enquiries at the station and with the police proved fruitless.

But I faced the music, and danced, in a groovy little basement club in the Merchant City with a friendly, informed crowd who were enjoying the privilege that comes from being in the know enough to be invited to the opening night. The scenery was excellent: most male house DJs I know have really fit girlfriends, and I can see why Tom -- the DJ -- moved up from Hertfordshire to Stirling to be with her.

Next day, we started drinking at a respectable 11am, with Glasgow already boozing, Wetherspoons in the city centre a luggage park for those wringing out the weekend.

Trina went to get her train, but I still had another three hours before mine, so I moved across the road to a different pub.

Being in a somewhat relaxed state by this point, I joined in with a
couple who were bantering at the bar. I told her she had nice tits; she called me a lippy cunt, and offered me a line and a wedding invite. He lent me his keys for a purpose other than which they were designed. I don't know how I get away with it.

"I've been waiting for her for eight years," he said. "I knew she was married to the wrong man" -- "soh did ah!" -- "and I found out on Facebook when she put her status..." "he pounced on me!" They folded into a laughing sideways nuzzle, which made a stone sink in my stomach. This will never be me and Wendy.

It was Wendy's uncle's sixtieth yesterday, and the plan was that me and Wendy would take the dog up the park and get wasted for a few hours, before going to her uncle's birthday pissup, but she wasn't up to it, feeling ill. She still managed to come over to mine for a bit of rosé. I'd made some potato scones and an apple cake for her and I got a quilt down in case she wanted to snuggle down on the settee. "I bet I look awful, don't I?" She lay down; I longed to curl up behind her.

Her uncle's birthday gathered together a miscellaneous party including Diamond Dave, so named from his years of smuggling diamonds from Angola into Belgium. Someone else was saying about how his mate was worrying about turning fifty. "Well fucking top yourself then," I said, not expecting it to be as funny as they found it.

In four hours, no-one bought me one single drink, while I was buying double brandies and double this, Bloody Mary's and God knows what. All I wanted was a pint of bitter -- a drink which would set someone back 1.75.

Middle daughter went to London on Thursday for a recall audition at the National Youth Theatre. The journey down, normally about two-and-a-half hours, took seven, and she and her friend got stuck overnight in London on Thursday night after Doris blew all the trains from Euston into a ditch. The trains the following day were rammed with people getting back home 24 hours late.

This was taken on her train back. What a scene of delight. A day off work, and nothing employers can do about it.

I met up for a coffee with Melissa, who's up from London for a few days to see Kitty and Wendy. It's been a long time since I held a baby. I like the smell of their heads but that's about it.

But they're bringing up baby properly. I don't mean by paying him attention, talking to him a lot, putting his physical and emotional needs first, and all that poncy Southern rubbish. I mean that he's being trained into an appreciation of the finest game ever invented. We're going to clear a day for a visit to the Oval this summer so that all of us can go to see Lancashire beat Surrey.

Middle daughter went to London last week for an audition-cum-interview at a top drama school. Part of me is hoping she chooses the place in Glasgow instead; when we looked through last year's graduates on their website the other day, we noticed that apart from a couple of Welsh people, they all list their "native accent" as RP. One of them has a surname which includes the connective "de"; several of them list "skiing (advanced level)" amongst their skills. She'd be the only person paying her rent herself, and neither me nor Kirsty are in any position to match the subventions that the others will receive. The not-so-hidden injuries of class.

I was at Trina's that day, who was going a bit spare with Demented Mother. I took a recipe from Lancashire Life with me and was making a tomato and pumpkin seed bread. My phone went off in the other room. Before I realised what she was doing, she answered it. Even by the ragged standards of Trina's stunted emotional intelligence, I was staggered at the arrogance of her doing that. It was my actress daughter, enthusing about being chosen for a recall next week.

I didn't send Wendy a Valentines card; it's too obvious. Instead, I sent her an invite to a techno night in Manchester, having first got provisional agreement from her auntie that she could childsit.

I met her today. She was wearing possibly the sexiest of her dresses, although that would be a very difficult decision. Would you like to fuck me in this dress looby, or would you like me to change into that one and see which one you like fucking me most in? She said that she's going to arrange it at work so that she's off the following day, and as long as we can secure auntie's services, we're on.

Kitty's birthday, and we're in the liberal accepting bar that is tolerant to all things, except differences in class. Working class speech and manners are repellent to them. Dogs are used as a proxy to introduce a vicariousness into conversation which makes their owners feel sufficiently distant from their interlocutors to be comfortable.

Earlier, me and Wendy spent a couple of hours down a proper pub. The ex-Navy man's voice from two tables away was boring, in more senses than one, into the couple next to us. "The thing to avoid," Wendy said, "is to make eye contact."

In the over-smiling bar, Wendy has changed into a different dress, a wraparound one which I longed to undo, to slide out the knot behind her back and unravel her.

There was five minutes when we were on our own. "You're such a romantic looby, but it never works. You end up being told off, and controlled. You've got lovely friends, you've got loads of people you know, you've got lovely daughters, and you've got a great life."

"I know that, I know all that. But I've got everything except what I want most." I was speeding and had had a few pints. I felt this hollowing behind my eyes, a sadness, a resignation. "You know Wendy, the person I want to be with, is you." She shook her head. Don't fucking impose that on her, I thought to myself; I recomposed my face and we went to talk about something else.

Kitty went home, and me, Wendy, and The Little Dictator, went back to Wendy's. Wendy told me to hide round the corner in her kitchen. The Little Dictator started wailing. "Looby's still here! I want you to come to bed with me!"

"Looby's gone home," said Wendy. "No he's not, he's in the kitchen."

She drained herself with histrionics, fell asleep on the settee, and Wendy cradled her up to bed.

Wendy gave a sigh; sat next to me, and put her head on my lap. I stroked her behind her ears and down the side of her head, slowly. I was arching down towards her because I wanted, very gently, to kiss her, but I couldn't get low enough. It was a slow paradise of feeling my fingers through her lovely dry hair, across the side of her face, and along her neck. My fingertips, and me wondering at her. Too much. I can't look at her any more. Closing my eyes, sliding touch.

Today, we all met up in The Fur Coat and No Knickers Arms.

They all had to go home but me and Wendy's aunt carried on for another few pints. "You know, looby, you've got no chance whatsoever with Wendy?" "I know, and I accept it. I've had -- I am having -- a fucking great life, but I want to give. I've got a shedload of affection and care to give to someone, and I want to give all that to Wendy. I know how controlling it can sound coming from a man, but I want to care for her and look after her."

Before bed, I text her. "I'm going to read more Ulysses then wank myself to sleep over you. High and low, but what's low about you? I love you Wendy, despite me being perfectly aware of the futility of such an ambition."

To Wigan, and an afternoon in a fine, sweary old pub. Above the coal fire, a gallery of photos from the World Pie Eating Championships and further along, a collection of early C20th erotic photographs. I texted Wendy about it, "... let me take you to Wigan for a pie, petal." She asked me if I was having a Wigan Salad. "A Wigan Salad?" "Yes, pie and chips."

It was generally a gnarled, frame-assisted clientele, with the exception of a mother and daughter, the latter with a pint of lager, and dressed in a tight scooped-necked grey top which delimited the outlines of her bra beautifully, a wet-look black miniskirt, black tights and flatties.

The in-house bookie herded money on a table. I put £2 on a horse with a name composed of Wendy's real name and an abbreviation of her daughter's. I texted Wendy saying that any winnings were hers; it came third. A man moaned about an acquaintance. "It's like that cunt Arthur. Right fucking grassing bastard he was."

At the station at Wigan, two policemen are arresting a man for not paying his fare from Warrington. All that effort and resources to wring £5.10 from a poor man, as silent millions are nodded into nondescript addresses in the British Virgin Islands.

A few yards away, a man is talking telephonically into his importance with all the vacuity of modern commerce, a meeting and a heads-up and Anna can confirm the details so if you can just get back to me on that.

I had a bottle of port and Ulysses for the journey home. I sank back willingly into Joyce, and wished that I could stay on the train all the way to Glasgow.

Back in Lancaster, and one for the road, I am bored for a while with an ex-Navy chap I have made the mistake of talking with, one of the many who make not the merest enquiry about you in conversation.

I am glad to get away when I notice The Barmaid, (the girl who didn't turn up for our drink the other day), her landlady, and a very attractive fortysomething barmaid, Emma. The Barmaid explained that she had passed on a message to Emma saying that she had had to cancel our meeting. Emma said that she hadn't known who I was. "What do you call a good-looking Paki?" asked The Landlady. "Asif." I'm afraid I found that very funny, so we'll pretend it's "transgressive" rather than "racist".

"Are you single then?" said The Barmaid. "Yes, I'm on the market. Not sure what I'll fetch but I am at the moment. Are you, Emma? Are you single?" "Yes, but I've got a date tomorrow." "Do you like him?" "Yes." "Well you know, if it doesn't work out, I'd go out with you. Seriously, I'd like a date with you. I think you're pretty fit."

I went along with the laughter before looking sideways at Emma. I'm not fucking joking, love. She had her hair tied up, for work maybe, but it looks lovely when it's down. "Why don't you ask [The Landlady] out?" "Because she'd be a fucking nightmare."

Doesn't look like there's much of an opening there, but a good afternoon's work I think: Expression of Interest and Tender Documents delivered to the relevant party.

They published my letter in the local newspaper last week.

Dear Editor

The announcement of the latest block of several hundred student flats presents a good opportunity for Lancaster to face some tough decisions over the city’s future.

We have to face up to the fact that students, not residents, are the dynamic force in Lancaster society. With their high disposable income, gregarious nature and the way they dispel the sleepy, quiet gloom on our residential streets at 3am, students are to be welcomed with open arms.

The clear brake on such positive developments is the presence of so many long-term residents – those who have worked here, brought their children up here, and contributed to the cultural and economic life of the city.

Whilst I am sure we appreciate such people, and whilst we undoubtedly need local citizens to service the needs of students, it must be accepted that the city cannot accommodate all those who would like to live here.

Far too many well-maintained, attractive terraced houses are underused at the moment, housing only couples and small families. Look down any street, and you will see the odd gap where a student house does not presently exist, a house perhaps occupied only by an elderly couple, who together have given a hundred years of labour to the City, which today results in Lancaster being such an attractive destination for young people from Hemel Hempstead interested in reading Change Management Performance Assessment Evaluation Mindfulness Studies.

In order to address this problem, I urge the Council to consider a Resettlement Scheme for residents, who would be given incentives to move to camps on underused brownfield sites such as the wasteland around Ocean Edge or land that could be reclaimed from Salt Ayre tip. The experienced sands guide Cedric Robinson could be consulted on which mud flats in Morecambe Bay are least likely to swallow a Portakabin and a family of five.

This would leave the city to thrive as an exciting student super-village, with residents and those born here allowed in on a day pass scheme administered by the Council. Those allowed to enter could have some sort of identifying mark, which could be something as simple as a brightly coloured badge in a bold geometric shape, to help the toll bar personnel. A special grade of Night Time Pass could be introduced for those who have a genuine reason for being in the city after midnight – for example, for those employed cleaning up sick after 2-4-1 Shots Night at Hustle.

We may even see an upsurge of creative endeavour in the camps. For example, talented residents could arrange chamber music and other concerts for visitors, as I am sure that even international organisations would be keen to see how Lancaster would be leading the way in Europe, in tackling a problem to which we had previously struggled to find a definitive answer.