"No hugging, no learning"

Hallo my dears,

I shall be sending a donation to Wikileaks following their reportage on US military communications today. These wars aren't quite as clean as portrayed for civilian casualties. Picked up Harry's discarded Guardian in my local pub tonight and was both horrified and gratified by the exposay.

Kiddos are away in Orkney with their others (dad and step-mum) leaving me latitude to get into trouble.

I got into bother on Friday night with a local man, whom I'd first met a fortnight before at the pub. We shared a long and chaste night smoking and listening to music that night. He turned up at the pub looking for me again and was still tall, dark and handsome, so we went up town for another drink alone. We were getting on so well that I allowed him to kiss me, but when I suggested we go back to mine, he flipped. The lover of the minute before started calling me a slag, slut, whore etc., with a slow truth dawning that I was in the company of a nasty-type nutter. When I told him to stop insulting me and to leave ("shut the fuck up and fuck right off out now"), he continued his sexualised personal insults with a raised voice and finger-poking gestures.

I sobered up remarkably quickly, realising I'd made a really bad call and now needed to get home safe and alone, by ensuring he left first and didn't hang around outside. Told him if he didn't leave I'd have the barstaff remove him, but he just carried on shouting about my whoredom and jabbing his finger at me. So I went to sensible-looking blokes sat nearby and told them through tears that I needed help getting rid of the maniac. While he was brave enough to scream for 10 mins at a 5'4", 9 stone woman against her requests to desist, it took just one quiet word from a 6'2" man to get him out. Thank God for the kindness of strangers, who let me get home safe.

What have we learned, ion? That you are not always a good judge of character, especially in your cups. And that tall, dark and handsome does not a gentleman make.

This negative experience apart, it's good getting out more and developing a community. It only took me 6 months to realise that home-working within 4 walls most days was not good for my mental health. So now there's often a morning coffee with Sweetie in the caff downstairs, especially if I'm hungover, and some evenings in my local pub, The Hell in a Handbasket, if I'm not. A glass of wine, a read of the papers or a book, some fiddle music, a chat with my favoured regulars, and claps of the regulars' dugs.

Sweetie from the caff has taken a leadership role with our neglected common back green, strimming the weeds, weed-killing the docks and dandelions, and digging a veg patch in which she's growing courgettes and carrots for the caff soup-pot. What a good influence she is! But amongst the 40 flats sharing the back green, there had to be one bastard. Yesterday, garage owner downstairs asked Sweetie to move her veg patch, due to his need for a 3 ft margin outside his bordering wall for maintenance access. In addition, he hopes the BBQ held out back last Saturday would not be a regular event, representing as it did a fire and safety hazard. It will give me some pleasure this week when I phone the Cooncil to establish that he has no such right. He's never been a pleasant neighbour.