This feels a bit awkward. I am in the front room with Tom next to me and Ned opposite. I would be upstairs but Trina has gone to bed and I don't want to disturb her. We are all trying to concentrate on our own things at hand. There's some white music of Ned's execrable taste playing on his computer, because we all want to listen to music which is an argument against the existence of God--for surely, a benevolent, omnipotent being would not allow The Cranberries to exist.

There was only one full day clear after the party before Trina and I ironed our groove slacks and packed our vanity cases for the Modern Soul and House Music Weekender in Blackpool. (Anyone who well-meaningly but erroneously mentions Northern or Motown in the comments will be made to listen to the collected works of The Cranberries). It's a regular feature of my diary and is one of the friendliest and most enjoyable weekends of my year. I look forward to it immensely.

We checked into our fleapit hotel on Friday afternoon--we can't afford the deluxe package with accommodation in the venue--and then spent the weekend on the Pizza, Dancing and E Diet. It has yet to make it into Cosmopolitan but guarantees instant results over a mere weekend. I picked up our tickets--pleased with myself in front of Trina for getting them cheaper from a DJ I know--and then danced our way through till breakfast.

Update: I stopped writing downstairs as my toes were curling back onto my foot. I am now on a quiet bit at work, where one of the clients has just borrowed a book with the word "sex" printed in huge red letters on the front cover. You're supposed to ask them to show you the book so you can record the loan, but I'll just look up "sex" on our list of books in a minute.

On Saturday afternoon we budged up on the sofa to accommodate a couple of early 30s girls from Norfolk. The chattier and more attractive one told us that her mate had copped off last night, "so I'm spending my nights alone." Then we understood why. A large black man whose face looked like a relief map of the Lake District arrived at the table with a cold bottle of Taittinger; he generously poured some for me and Trina, producing, with what I thought was charming aplomb, two extra flutes for us. The girl from Norfolk, in turn, produced a vile, lukewarm "Blanc de Blanc" which was barely drinkable. As Leroy Bassenthwaite referred vaguely to a "business" in London, I remembered a more or less identical conversation with him last year, on the very same sofa.

In the foyer I meet two people from Morecambe, and I tell them about turning down a cloak-and-dagger proposal from a mutual friend, who wanted to get in for Saturday night for free. It involved meetings in car parks, scissors and double-sided sellotape. He's broke and he and his "wild Latino hellcat" as he calls her, want to get into the main night of the weekend for nothing. I told them that I wouldn't do that, and would pay for a pass for them both, at the discount rate from my DJ pal.

On Sunday we had to check out at 10am, so after three-and-a-half hours' sleep we were up to pack our things, before we fortified ourselves for one last push with a greasy spoon fry up. We got back to the Hilton and settled down into the dance room we liked the most. Before long the staff came round, turning the lights down and drawing the curtains, and the music got more housey. In a couple of hours Trina was somewhat away with the catnip and interrupted the dancing to tell various women in what ways they looked good, and all that somewhat false female camaraderie.

But then, the girl dancing next to us had helped Trina when the latter had a nosebleed the previous evening; more interesting to me though, was her dress, one of the sexiest in a weekend of sexy dresses. It had one long zip that started at the above-the-knee hem, snaked its way up to her cleavage then turned left to form a large asymmetrical collar. I couldn't help but imagine unzipping it all. She acknowledged Trina's compliment, but was in a similar situation to ourselves, and turned back to dance.

We lasted until 6pm. Trina drove us home through clouds of blinding lorry-rain, complaining about irresponsible drivers going at 80mph while she did 77. Back here, a letter showed that some people don't have much time off over Christmas and the New Year. Everyone was lively and chatty and curious, but I could hardly speak and was glad when they went to bed. Trina and I sat up drinking until 2am, stretching it out until we were fading in and out of sentences. We shouldn't have had three bottles of wine, but fuck it, it's only all the time once a year.

---

Since then, Trina has been here now for four days, and I am irritated with her. Her presence is too big; she sits and does a performance of patience if I have to get on with anything--which soon, of course, prevents me doing anything but court her. I want her to go away, for us to enjoy looking back on a fabulous weekend without this resentment in tail.

On Monday I suddenly took ill, and crawled to bed at midday, vomiting. At some point in the evening, Trina lumbered into bed, almost snapping my leg in half, then suffocating her desirable but inagile figure against me, making me groan with nausea as she threw a hand round my stomach, talking and asking me questions, stroking me with her hot, unwelcome hands. After a while she fell asleep and started snoring. I nudged her and told her she was doing so. She histrionically got out of bed, complaining "There's nowhere for me to go." I didn't have the energy to list the many things she could do in my house or out of it during my indisposition. She went off to her narrowboat and I moaned with a mixture of nausea and relief.

Last night I slept badly on the sofa to evade her snoring. I'm hoping she'll be generous enough to offer to sleep there herself tonight.

Sitting in the pub at 5.00 on New Year's Eve with Ned and Tess, Ned said "You're getting that nervy look again. Don't worry. It's going to be the greatest party ever." I said that you must not hope for anything you want too much. Ned then spent the rest of the evening trying to wind me up by declaring repeatedly that it will be the greatest party ever.

Richard arrived and started setting chairs in a circle in the living room. I didn't want it to be that kind of party. I don't want to sit around hearing about your fucking job. As more people than chairs arrived, I surreptitiously took the chairs out, forcing people to stand up--and, I hoped, to dance.

My musical selection wasn't achieving the latter objective, so I let them loose on the computer, which produced a much better response.

Richard's wife died four years ago, and his best friend suffered the same fate a month ago. He drank a whole bottle of Jack Daniels and before the stage at which he couldn't stand up, he set off a couple of alarm bells when he was draping himself needily around Tess and Kitty. "Do you need rescuing?" I whispered to Tess, but she waved me away. I'm not good at sympathy, and as I went halfheartedly to drag him onto the sofa after he fell over in front of the fireplace, I'm glad I stopped myself from saying "He's alright. I think it's partly attention-seeking behaviour." But I did say, once he was slumped on the settee again, "Listen Richard, you're not having anything more to drink at this party otherwise you'll have to leave. It's New Year's Eve and you're not contributing much to the night at the moment."

Next morning he was highly apologetic, saying how he was staring out of the window and realising that D--- was dead. I nodded and produced a couple of conciliatory formulae, but I hope he got the message that in future he's got to handle his drink, not bring all his bereavement grief to the party, and that the female guests aren't to be used as social workers. However, the incidents with Richard were but peripheral to a superb night.

I overheard one of those age-old conversations-cum-arguments when one of a yoked dyad wanted to leave and the other wanted to stay; but there was a serendipitous accident in which they didn't hear the text from their taxi home, and besides, you'll not win with Chris, and her boyf was packed off home. A couple of hours later Chris and Barry had an interesting conversation and--I gathered later--walked round to his house to develop their mutual understanding of the topics in question.

Tom, the new lodger, who hardly drinks, showed surprising fortitude in staying up till an early hour, without the catnip that several of the guests were on. Someone asked me for another Smartie at one point and I felt a bit embarrassed when he caught sight of the little plastic bag. But by that stage it was taking off and I was dancing and chatting and had got to the "ah fuck it" stage.

Trina came into the kitchen, where I was chatting to Kitty, and said "I'll forgive you." "What?" "With Chris." I had no idea what that meant and couldn't be bothered pursuing it. Chris and I have sex often, in my imagination. Barry came up and said "Those Smarties! They're the ones that all those people at that party in Holland ended up in hospital with!" "Well I don't know when I'm going to die then Barry because I've had about a dozen of them in the last couple of months."

I gave up at 8.30, because Trina had to drive home--over the limit, and with drugs in her system--although it went on, in a fashion, until the following afternoon.

Someone texted "Looby! Must tell you again, last night was fab!" Someone else said "...the people were just amazing." When I woke up at 2am this morning, there was a text from Mary-Ann. It was unexpected and lip-bitingly delighting: "Merry 2014, sexy thing", which pleased me no end. I texted Daniella, her of the two dates, gorgeous dress, bit taller than me, the sexual thrill of having to tilt my head up slightly to kiss her, and the terrible scene with Trina when she found a text from me to her on my phone. "Hello Daniella. Happy New Year you sexy girl. I often think about you in that lovely dress you wore at the Sun and at yours. Hope you had an enjoyable Christmas. Your admirer from Lancaster X." No reply; not really expecting or wanting one.

Tonight it was the girls' birthday party, held at the local pleb controllers' cafe. Upstairs, Kirsty, boyf and I laid out a nutritious tea of hydrogenated vegetable fats, sugar and refined carbohydrates for the guests, all girls. My eldest went as a flapper, in a shimmying black dress, a feather in her head band and Poundshop pearls; my middle one wore this beautiful pale blue flared polka dot 50s-ish dress, and my youngest went as David Bowie with that lightning thing painted across her face. I tried to avoid smiling too much at them, or even looking at them much at all; I think it can come across as a bit patronising.

---

This time of the year feels delirious, timeless, abandoned. I'm still cognizant of the privilege of having all of the period off; it was not always so. The streets of my city are currently strewn with happy tablets and extra strong caster sugar. But neither of those conditions fully account for the other-worldly atmosphere here, of sex and death and licence.

Yesterday afternoon I met my old friend from the railway, the one who sent me the card with a horse on it. Ned rang asking what we were doing and came down to join us, as did Trina and Tess a bit later on, and my friend Roger. We also acquired a recovering alcoholic who Ned met outside. With the deft tact I can deploy in such situations, I said "I think there's a link between alcoholism, self-absorption, and depression." I am on heat at the moment, with this intoxicating, careless atmosphere, and Trina's tits looked lovely in her purple top with the black ties crossing. I asked her if she likes sucking my cock; she took this as a cue to usher me home and limit the damage. We went straight to bed. "Oooh, I wanted you in the pub," I said. "Yes, I could tell. You were doing that funny smiley face."

We were fast asleep when I heard the bedroom door open and awoke to see Ned standing in the middle of my room. "Oh no--you're really asleep! I thought you'd still be up. Why don't you come downstairs?" "No," said Trina, "I'd rather fuck him," a remark which took me aback somewhat, in contrast to the way that publicly talking about cock sucking and diagnosing strangers with depression is unremarkable. Ned advanced upon us and lay down on the quilt in between Trina and I, wrapping himself around us with drunken effusiveness. "Yes, right, you can go away now," I said, turning my face away from his prickling stubble.

The following morning, Trina woke me with the flutter-eyed come-hither announcement that she needed to go for a massive fart. Deflated, she came back in. "Shall we go and get in bed with them? she said.

This evening, Ned apologised; I told him that nothing had happened that required an apology.

Do they know it's Christmas?

---

The best response to a Christmas present came from my youngest, Melanie. As she unwrapped a black roll-neck jumper, she said "Let's get naked, and smoke!"

I'm not sure how my Mum sees me but it became clearer with her present. Trina got us these crackers with wind-up penguins inside them, so we set the drunkards and the penguins off together on the dinner table. They all wobbled and clattered comically together. It felt dissolute, the whole thing, and the little moments of trying not to appear too pissed in front of my daughters. My New Year's Resolution is to drink more port.

Kirsty's brother landed on Christmas Eve stayed overnight, to break his journey to Edinburgh to see his children. He's a conscientious Dad, who's had a couple of good-looking intelligent girlfriends leave him. One of them was his girls' charismatic mother, a sexy, selfish Welsh girl who did Cultural Studies. Several years ago she gave me her copy of Derrida's On Grammatology as a book to laugh at, the Emperor with no clothes in his transparent pomp. I wasn't interested in Derrida; I was trying to preface something else.

Nev's in about as much debt as I am. We stood at the kitchen door while he smoked and swapped tales of debt collectors, bailiffs and artful lying on the phone, when you get trapped into answering it. I said "I don't really worry about these phone calls. I've got this ability to talk for ages, on and on and on, without actually saying anything." "Really? I'd never noticed," said Kirsty. We went out for our tea at the local right-on vegetarian cafe. It's popular with middle class people who like the feeling of safety it gives them, knowing that they'll only ever meet people like themselves.

Tonight I gathered up everything and left Kirsty's after three days' residence and came back to mine. I've now got the enjoyable task of putting the music together for my NYE do. A coal fire, purple fairly lights glistering in the tinsel, and a soundtrack of disco-going-on-house with incomprehensible but transcendentally meaningful refrains chanted by big black men.

A couple of friends of a friend did this after a night on the lash in Morecambe the last time we had snow, a couple of years ago. It's the finest example of public art I've ever seen.

To all readers, commenters, lurkers, bots, image thieves, seekers after knickers and the eternally disappointed person from Pakistan looking for "gay narzi sex", a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you very much for your company this year. We've lost some good people, but I'm pleased to have picked up some interesting new waifs and strays wandering around on the hard shoulder of the information superhighway. Cheers!