My friend who’s detoxing came to visit so I saw in the long bank holiday weekend dry which my wallet loves me for today, unlike the 101 friends I’ve been calling since noon to get out there with me for pints that they don’t want added on top of the headaches they’ve already clocked up, trickling in reminders of biros pushing numbers onto palms that are still dirty, not like the soft hands of Hannah, travelling out by bus to salvage my bored Saturday with her company, half fuelled by pity and half by the fact that she’s less wimpish than most, bringing Welshy along with her like my time’s free for anyone to pimp off to others without my sign off, which I would have granted anyway because let’s face it, he’s great and I didn’t have anything on the cards an hour ago, dragging my vacuum cleaner around the flat to a backdrop of BBC news reports going around and around like the duster on the coffee table brushing away crisp crumbs until the next bored house tidy and back to front dusting and mopping sequence, so eager I get to have things done, like this gibberish snake of thought’s final line as Hannah’s just arrived, folding her umbrella, walking towards me and saying ‘Hello!’