On Friday I went out, after a fashion, with the woman I bumped into the other week. A minute after I'd sat down with a pint she texted saying that she was in a different pub, saying that it was too crowded in the one we'd agreed to meet in. I texted her. "I've just got a pint two minutes ago so I'm not wasting that :)"

She turned up ten minutes later and said "I can't sit facing the mirror". We swapped places; I started feeling like a mental health worker. We lasted about forty minutes. She didn't like the pub and said she was going. She walked out, taking her glass of wine with her then came back looking for her scarf. Everyone good-naturedly got up to have a look for it. "Someone's stolen it," she said.

She's just rang, saying that "it's a bit odd that you've got two girlfriends" and "I'm a bit traditional like that."

"Hang on," I said. "I've got only got one," as if I were trying to rescue something. In fact I was pleased that she seemed to be working up to saying goodbye. "I know I'm not very attractive, but -- not to be nasty -- you're no George Clooney are you?" "Wouldn't claim to be, love." Then she said "well, I've run out of things to say," and hung up.

Pity she's a nutter. A female lush around my age would have been a useful addition.

The women at Mel's friend's 40th do the following day were altogether different, more sparkly, both in terms of dresses and personalities.

Mel knows the birthday girl from a community garden project she's involved in, and the guests were all Community Engagement Equality and Participation Inclusion Officers, or things like that. They were off the leash, with their husbands at home looking after the children. One of them in particular, a slim girl with tousled dyed dark blonde hair, wearing a spangled black minidress that she let ride up, posed a difficulty.

The karaoke was lazily run by a man in drag who sang several songs himself, and joined in, unasked, with some other people's songs. I'd been practising my song, You're My First, My Last, My Everything, but he'd set the mic levels wrong, so I couldn't hear myself. I got a couple of pats on the back as I came off, and Miss Minidress spoke to me briefly.

"You were a bit touchy-feely with Miss Minidress," Mel said the next morning. I sank into regret: the salacious older man, tarnishing Mel by association, and trying to remember, precisely, in what way I had been touchy-feely. I remembered the harsh touch of her chemical dress, its glittered surface and its scratchy surface. So yes, I must have had my one good hand on her.

"No, don't worry. Really, it's OK, I don't think she minded. She was drunk anyway. Don't think about it." I did think about her though.

I've just got off the phone to a woman who said "I'd really like to see you again," and "you know, it's not a sexual thing", and "I know I'm not that attractive," and "you drink every day? I thought it was just me."

Before Christmas, Mel had to take her mother up to the Infirmary for another set of tests to discover why she's getting old. I went with her, but left them at the doors, at Bristol's largest open-air smoking arena. I went to a pub I'd never visited before, full of inescapable televisions showing people with clipboards standing up talking about Gillingham v Swindon, or something equally as niche.

The place was filling up, and a woman about my age, or a bit younger, came in and looked in vain for a free table. I waved her over and opened my hand towards the chair opposite me.

She's been barred from four pubs, but I couldn't get precise details of any of the incidents out of her. Admirably, she went up to the bar to ask that one of the ignored televisions be turned off, to be told "no, they want it." When she went to the toilet, she said "you will be here when I get back won't you?"

There's a rough plan to have a drink together on Friday.

A couple of hours to kill in the beautiful town of Ludlow.

I perch somewhat uncomfortably, on a narrow window-sill. The man standing near me at the bar has one of those externally-fixed hearing aids consisting of a disc attached to the skull. He attributes his deafness to working at Wooferton, the UK's last remaining shortwave transmitter site. It was stolen from the BBC -- I think the term in economics is "privatised" -- in 1997.

For many years, as a boy, I thought I'd become a broadcast engineer, so I know a little about Wooferton, but nothing compared to the volumes of first-hand information and social history my new friend possessed. He said that the intense, invisible but audibly thrumming electromagnetic fields caused many of the employees to become clinically depressed. The farmer in the nearby farm burnt his hand on an invisibly radiating metal door catch; one of the secretaries spent some time in the loony bin after working there.

I kept revising my time out of the pub until I caught the very last train back to Bristol.

Since I came back from Tenerife in February, I've been saving my £2 coins up.

£532.

Wrexham 6 Morecambe 0; Bristol City Women 0 Manchester Utd Women 2.

Along with twelve hundred other Morecambe supporters I made my way to northeast Wales for their match against the nouveau riche club of Wrexham. You might know that the club recently won the Hollywood lottery by having two "famous actors" pour millions into their coffers, thus creating some ill-feeling amongst the fans of the other clubs in the same league, as they buy their way up it. Everyone wants them to fail to gain the promotion that looks likely.

I have no male friends, and two-thirds of my daughters fancy girls, so I enjoy the male camaraderie of my awaydays at the football and being off the leash. I'm afraid to say that occasionally, I enjoy making middle class travellers feel uncomfortable without doing anything identifiably offensive. I enjoy the class tribalism of football, joined in the ummah of heavy-drinking, train-riding pilgrims. But simply drinking can unnerve some people.

Wrexham certainly don't spend their money on making away fans feel well looked after. In the Wrexham Lager Stand, the away end, there was no beer; there was no hot food, and they banned us from taking our drums, whilst allowing the home fans to use theirs. But the people in the pub next to the ground were welcoming, ("no, not all, we're pleased to see you"), taking pains to point out to me that they'd been coming to Wrexham for many years, back when they'd be luck to get gates of two hundred.

We were completely outclassed, losing six-nil. Our new manager marked his first day in charge by getting sent off. Their chants were better than ours too: "Tyson Fury is a sex offender" and "your town's full of gippos".

The following day, I went with middle daughter and her girlfriend to Bristol City to see the women take on Man Utd. I could have done without it really, being full of beer, but I was curious to see a women's game, and of course my daughter, who lives up there now.

I bumped into a couple at Temple Meads, obviously United fans, and we shared a taxi there. I'd told them that I was wearing my Morecambe scarf in order to signal that I did not wish to be associated with either of the teams playing. "Where are you sitting?" he asked. "I've got a horrible feeling it'll be with you," which I was relieved to find provoked laughter rather than a long walk.

Ashton Gate is a quality stadium with a high rake so you see a lot more of the action. My daughter reported that a "fancy burger" was 12 quid, and the cider was 5.75. I spotted my first ever Muslim family at the football. Whereas I got a bit pissed off with this bloke my age who was fucking about on Instagram and farcebook. Even when Utd scored their second he barely glanced up, before going back to his phone. Meanwhile, his two boys started playing around by throwing jelly sweets into their mouths. It was an expensive way of catching up with what people are having for dinner.

There were a great many football novices there, looking all surprised and a wee bit supercilious when people started chanting -- even in the carefully self-censoring fashion that I gather is typical of women's matches. Yet it was the only thing that disturbed Instagram man's concentration.

The housing association gave me a voucher for £700 to replace the flood-damaged carpets in my flat. I was surprised to be told by the carpet fitter that to carpet my small studio flat, from the "Value" range, would cost double that.

Unleashed from work, and in charge of a credit card, I take myself to Grimsby to have a good shout with the other Morecambe fans. We scored in the 90th second and the 86th minute, but in that interval Grimsby scored thrice.

After the match I was taken to what I was assured is "the roughest pub in Grimsby" by three men I met on the train from Cleethorpes (Grimsby's ground, confusingly, is in Cleethorpes). I stayed for a couple, but got a bit tired of one bloke telling me at length, with photographic illustrations, of what great sex I could have if I went to Thailand.

I had booked a "hotel" for 35 quid. I was welcomed into a large living room where a silent man was watching the television and a dog was eating the remains of their dinner from a plate on the floor. The owner was a Chinese woman, who, in between nodding like an oriental Parkinson's sufferer, took me into the yard and showed me the outdoor privy which was to be the loo. We then went upstairs, me wondering why the inside toilet on the first floor was barred to me, and she showed me into a room-sized fridge which looked like some drug rehabilitation hostel, with a mattress directly on the floor.

Back in town, as I thawed out in a well-known chain pub, I was tempted by a notice about rooms being available. I texted the "hotel" to say that I had decided to stay in town and would be back to collect my things the following morning. I had a large double room with a bathroom the size of my bedroom for 68 quid.

I went down for breakfast yesterday morning, Remembrance Sunday, and thought I was in some sort of film set for Carry On Up The Colonials.

Doncaster. The only town in the United Kingdom
where they eat cafes

On the journey back I had a bit of time to kill in Doncaster, so I went to The Plough, where a bloke said that he'd been to Blackpool where he bought a present for a friend. "I got her this cock rock. Be more of a man than she's had for a while." The landlord, who looked like a character from an Alan Sillitoe novel, with slicked back thinning hair, brought out a free buffet of cheese, crackers, sausage rolls, and black pudding.

Back on the train, a couple of Scousers were counting out hundreds and hundreds of pounds in twenties and tenners. After a verification process that seemed to be taking place, with confirming nods between them, they started chatting to me, asking me if the Morecambe fans had taken up the usual away supporters' chant, "We Piss on Your Fish."

On Friday, I went for a drink after work. I got talking to a man who showed me some official papers, issued to him on his release from police custody earlier that day. He'd damaged a door. "I don't drink that often, but when I do I lose the plot," he said, setting his new pint of Stella before himself.

I didn't rush my pint, but made it my last; bade him farewell, and wished him, insincerely, good luck in his trial.

I was intercepted on my way out by the first person ever to speak to me in that pub after starting the job in ----. He was sitting with a man who half an hour earlier had lent me his glasses, as he saw me squinting at my bank card. My account is still frozen -- originally with £490 in it, but now, with payments that are being dropped down the same well, is holding around £850. I needed my account number in order to apply for a loan from Bank of Mum.

James told me about breaking off his engagement after he bumped into an old flame and transferred his affections. His fiancée found out, and at their last meeting threw his pint over him.

James has regressed into teenagerdom, showing me farcebook posts about her I didn't want to see; but I enjoy these kind of stories. Sometimes I miss the gossip and scandal of a small town.

On my scooter ride home, I got to within a couple of yards of my front door, tried to ride up the kerb, and came clattering down. At that moment, a car slowed down and pulled over. Wanting above all to avoid the driver's solicitations, I stood up quickly and gaily smiled and shrugged, trying to indicate that I'd rather she carried on her way.

The pain that night was some of the worst I've ever had, but I thought that if I could just bear it for a few hours it would go away. I was awake all night, then at the hospital the following day, I was told that I'd broken my wrist and my elbow.

I was delighted to read, in the leaflet they gave me when I was discharged, that I'll probably be in plaster for about four weeks; but worried about what my manager would say at work when he returned my call. The phrase I feared hearing was "alternative duties".

To my surprise, it was all over in a couple of minutes. He said that there were no alternative duties available for me, and wished me well and to keep in touch.

I put the phone down, shouted, and did a victory punch with my good hand. "You have turned that phone off, haven't you? cautioned Mel. The phone was indeed off, and a radiant vista of a month of paid leisure, riding on Tramadol, opened up before me.

On Thursday I received an invite to a competitive online geometry-themed arcade game, one of the bizarre recruitment practices the railway industry uses as the gatekeeper at the citadel in which the better jobs are kept. I have unambiguously failed before at this test, but that might prepare me better for it this time round.