I'm at my wits' end. I thought it would be easy, somehow. I thought I would go back to the pub the next Friday and she'd be there again, or at least her parents would. I thought I could follow them home, find her address, her phone number, call her, get in touch. I thought that someone would know them and would recognise my description and tell me who they were. I thought I would bump into her in the street. I thought. I thought.

I thought it would be easy, and now I've lost my angel. And I don't know what to do. "Just let me dream on, oh just let me pray."

Typical, typical, frankly typical. Typical of me, typical of what I've become, typical of Margaret Bellamy. I'm losing my grip, I'm getting old, I'm getting stale. Twenty years ago I wouldn't have let such a treasure slip through my fingers. Twenty years ago I would have charmed the knickers off her before that first evening was over. Twenty years ago I was different. Now I'm just a waltzing dreamer.

Where does it all go? All that youthful zeal, that certainy, the confidence, the will to thrill and the care to dare? You don't notice it disappearing, and that is the cruel thing. One morning you wake up and you're thirty-seven, going on seventy-three, and it's all slipped past you in the night when you weren't looking, and you look in the mirror and what do you see? A loser in love.

And what's left? What's the future? The long slide towards bingo on a Friday night and a box of Ferrero Rocher for a touch of the exotic; the steady march towards having seven identical pairs of support knickers in the drawer and breasts which tickle your belly button; the sad descent of the glamour girl and the grim ascent of the frump.

You'll have to excuse me, but it's Tuesday, and Tuesday's my night for wallowing in self pity. Come round tomorrow, I'll be cheerier then. Wednesday's are keep fit days. Thursdays can be for flower arranging, I've already said Fridays are for bingo, and Saturdays can be my Darby and Joan night. Sorry, I'm off again. It's probably something to do with the bottle of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc I have by my side: wine and depression do not a happy girl make. Mind you, it's a very nice Sauvignon Blanc, from the Maule Valley, by way of the 24 hour Tesco over the road. Dangerous, living fifty yards from a 24 hour convenience store.

But never mind, the frump has a night out tomorrow. I can doll myself up, forget my age and relive old times. It's only at the Star and Garter, admittedly, and I've never heard of the band who're playing, but if I stay in this house one more evening, trying not to think about my darling Simone, I shall probably go mad. Altogether now: "one step for aching, two steps for breaking, waltzing's for dreamers...."

Been a couple of weeks, sorry. Can't even say it was because I've been painting the town red, seeing new sights, doing new things. Nothing so interesting. Not that I'm bothered, to be perfectly honest. I seem to have this reputation for being the go-getter, Miss Up-and-at-'em, the woman who can, and I'm damned if I know where I got it from.

That's not true either, of course. I know exactly where I got it from: me. It's carefully cultivated and jealously guarded. It's a mask which I need, a domino for my doubt, a veil to hide my verity. Couldn't have them thinking I was Simone the Serious, could I?

I seem to have blown it totally with John. He hasn't spoken to me since the night before I went home last, when he tried to feel me up. Ignored me for a fortnight, and today he blanked me totally. We bumped into each other in the refectory queue, and couldn't help but acknowledge one another. Except he didn't, just talked to Gareth the two-faced Welsh tosspot. I stood there for a minute, staring at him, waiting for him to say something, and he didn't. I felt so belittled, so humiliated. But I know he just wants one thing from me, and when I wouldn't give it to him that was that. There's no room for romantic love in this world, is there?

The band are playing tomorrow night, so it's back home. I'm a bit nervous actually, which I don't usually get, but it's a while since we played together, what with me being at uni most of the time. Expect we'll pick it up okay though. Don phoned earlier and sounded really up for it. Marie is trying out her new fiddle, apparently, so the Fiddle Twins will be reborn... I'll let you know how it goes, and hopefully not in two weeks again... Night night.