Just Another Weird Wednesday

In which The Author should have stayed in bed

Yesterday can best be described as one of those days. For a few weeks, Clare and I have been riding the latest wave of chaos to break on the town. I might have accidentally started it (see Be Careful What You Wish For), but Goddess is having way too much fun fucking with our heads now. In fact, we're writing a song to the tune of the Prince/Bangles classic, covering an average week in Aberdare; the seven verses revolve around Silly Sunday, Manic Monday, Trippy Tuesday, Weird Wednesday, Thaumaturgical Thursday, Fucked-up Friday and Surreal Saturday. Well, yesterday was a Weird Wednesday and no mistake.

It's just under a year since I went to the Brunel Arms in Pontyclun to change over the Anthony Nolan Trust collection box on the bar. With Xmas looming, I've been paying in the boxes systematically over the past week, to make sure they're nice and fresh for the busiest time of the year. With this in mind, I emailed Fay the landlady yesterday and asked if it was OK to call over. She said she'd be there in the afternoon, so I said I'd see her early in the session. So far, so good.

From that moment on, the day just kept spinning more and more out of control.

I'd invited Clare to join me, but when I rang her in the morning she didn't pick up. I tried again on the way to town; she answered and sounded like death warmed up. She'd been throwing up all night, apparently. My preliminary diagnosis – mild alcohol poisoning – made her laugh, but since she made a sudden recovery in time to go out last night, it doesn't seem unreasonable.

I caught the train to Cardiff, and texted Chazza to see if she fancied meeting for a coffee, depending on her shifts. I arrived just in time to miss the service to Maesteg, the only one which serves Pontyclun. I was also just in time to photograph the Tower Colliery–Aberthaw MGR passing through Platform 6 – something I've never been able to manage before. Unfortunately, my trusty second-hand Olympus let me down for the first time. The little door which keeps the batteries in place had broken, so there was no way of using it. I haven't yet used the Canon compact Clint gave me a couple of months ago, so at least I've got an incentive to try it out.

I told the guy on the barrier I'd missed my connection, and asked him if I could go for a wander before the next train arrived. It was better than sitting in the waiting room for an hour. I headed straight for Waterstones, where I picked up a few novels and a couple of books on medieval history. If I do get the call to do Christian's next book, at least I'm starting to martial my own forces. I didn't see any of the old gang, but there was a very pretty and extremely pleasant young girl on the upstairs counter, who directed me to the Welsh Interest section.

I should explain that I've been keeping this one to myself until I saw it in black and white on Tuesday night. I'm going to be one of the two Plaid Cymru candidates in Aberdare East in the May council elections. It's an incentive for me to keep a new year's resolution from last year, and start learning Welsh when the next round of classes start in January. With this in mind, I also bought a copy of Cwrs Mynediad, the foundation course for Welsh learners, and a learner's dictionary.

Back in St Mary Street, I tried ringing Mother. It seemed daft to be in Cardiff and not do some Xmas shopping while I was there. She must have gone for a swim, because I tried three times and there was no answer. I made my way over to the station, where it turned out I'd misread the timetable – I'd been looking at the arrival time row, rather than the departure time, so I had half an hour to kill. I shot over to the Golden Cross for a quick glass of Coke, and tried logging into their WiFi. It was not a hotspot, though, and that set the scene for the rest of the day.

I made the Maesteg train by seconds, and didn't enjoy the twenty-minute journey to Pontyclun. It's beautiful, running through the Vale of Glamorgan, past St Fagans, and looping around the river Ely much of the way. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. However, there was a small child in the seat behind me who kept flicking the seat-back tray up and down relentlessly. He studiously ignored his mother's instructions to 'Stop that!' from the moment I got on to the moment I got off. I was actually tempted to Gibbs-slap him myself, to be honest.

Anyway, I got to the Brunel, where Fay was behind the bar and a handful of locals were having a chat by the bar. I didn't recognise her at first, because she's dyed her hair and looks really great after having her baby. She stood me a glass of Coke, we unhooked the collection box, and I poured it out on a table near the window. Some daft bugger must have poured some drink into it, because the bottom of the box was really sticky, and a lot of the coins were also sticky and a bit discoloured. I ended up rinsing both box and cash under the tap before I could even start counting.

In the meantime, a pleasant guy named Geoff and I started chatting across the little bay window. Fay fed the baby, wrapped Xmas presents, she, her boyfriend, and two of their friends had a really bizarre conversations about orgasms during childbirth, among other things.

I said, 'Well, this beats the usual Aberdare pub afternoon crap about immigration and coal mining.'

Fay laughed and said, 'It's always like this in here.'

'If it didn't take all bloody day to travel fifteen miles as the crow flies, I'd come over more regularly.'

That's true. From the bay window of the pub, you get a great view of God's Wonderful Railway. Passenger and freight services hurtle past at all hours of the day. As a matter of fact, considering the size of Pontyclun, Llantrisant, Beddau, and all the surrounding new-build developments, one train an hour seems barely adequate. Factor in the number of trains that shoot through the station every sixty minutes without stopping, and once again it seems that the Powers That Be are missing a trick here. Frequent stopping services on the Cardiff to Bridgend section would take a hell of a lot of pressure from the road network, which is close to gridlock most working days.

On the way out, we'd zoomed across the level crossing at St Fagans, only a mile (if that) from the Museum of Welsh Life. Surely a station in close proximity to the country's leading visitor attraction would attract considerable footfall and generate a fair amount of revenue. I'm not talking about rebuilding Bristol Temple Meads here – just an island platform adjacent to each running line, a little shelter, and a ticket machine. Is it just me …?

Anyway, our collection box had raised a very healthy £27.00, plus some shrapnel and three foreign coins. I fed the shrapnel back in, changed the rest with Fay, and then tucked it away to pay in today. In line with many Valleys towns, Pontyclun has lost its Barclays Bank within the past few years. I didn't fancy walking two miles to Talbot Green and back, to be honest.

With my secondary plan to add Pontyclun to my Vanishing Valleys portfolio well and truly buggered, I bought a pint and settled down to send the updated spreadsheet to Melissa at Anthony Nolan. And Goddess stuck her oar in again. The router in the pub is broken, so I couldn't access the Internet at all. I used a bit of mobile data to update Clare on the day so far, and then settled down to do some work on Project XXXmas (of which more in due course).

The music was a very pleasant change from the Aberdare jukebox staples of Elvis, Engelbert, Stereobloodyphonics and awful thrash metal, too. Out of the blue came Jimi Hendrix's legendary destruction of the US national anthem; shortly afterwards, I recognised the unique style of John Coltrane. The last time I tried going down the Modern Jazz route in Aberdare I was lucky to escape with my life.

Yes, indeed, if the public transport in the Valleys ever does get dragged kicking and screaming into the last quarter of the twentieth century, I think the Brunel will be on my itinerary more often.

I had another pint, texted Chazza to say I was on my way back, then headed for the 1745-ish departure. As I reached the platform the destination board was flickering up a message. I read it quickly, turned on my heel, and made my way towards the pub. As I was crossing the car park, a young chap was making his way towards the station. This is how the ensuing conversation went.

'Train's been cancelled,' I said.

'What – the Cardiff?' he asked.

'Yeah.'

'Shit!'

'Pretty much what I said.'

'Bollocks!'

'That as well'

'Are there any buses?'

'I couldn't tell you, sorry, I'm not from this area.'

(I wouldn't have banked on it, mind you. We were, after all, heading into the Twilight Zone.)

'Neither am I.'

'Well, good luck. I'm going back to the pub.'

He laughed and we parted company. I found a cashpoint outside the Co-op, drew out some more money, and headed back to the Brunel.

Fay thought it was hilarious when I strolled back in and ordered another pint. A chap about my age came in just after me, and the three of us had a long conversation about Differentiated Public Transport.

In fact, it was such a long conversation that I didn't notice the time slipping away. I glanced at the clock, and I still had nearly half a pint. I'd never have finished it and made it to the station in time. I texted Chazza to tell her it would be more like eight o'clock until I was back, and carried on chatting to my new friend at the bar.

I finally left in time for the 1945-ish departure and walked over to the station. It had been delayed, so I found myself in the greatest joke set-up ever: Two Mormons, a lesbian and a Discordian are waiting for a train.

Seriously.

The two lads – one from California, one from Mexico – were doing missionary work in the Valleys. The girl works as a groom at a large stud farm nearby, and lives with her partner in Studentland in Cardiff. We had a very interesting conversation before the train came in, which continued until we parted company in the concourse at Cardiff Central.

By now my phone had died, and there wasn't enough juice in the Netbook for me to jump start it. I had no way of contacting Chazza, but I'd mentioned the Golden Cross in my earlier text, so I figured I might as well stick around and see if she called in. I headed back to the pub, and was quite pleased to learn that karaoke has shifted back to Wednesday evening.

I started chatting to a couple of lads in the bar. One was Scottish, the other from Coventry, and they were in town for a gig by renowned US rock group the Pixies at the Motorpoint Arena, just a few minutes' stagger away. We had a good chat about politics in our respective countries, the history of Cardiff, the Welsh language, and life in general, before they shot off to catch the main band of the evening.

The host(ess) – one of the pub's resident drag queens – started canvassing for singers. I was wondering whether to throw my hat into the ring when the door opened and my old pal Adam L. strolled in. He was with a guy I hadn't met before, but whom I was sure I recognised from my days in the book trade.

As it turned out, I was half-right. Lee used to work in Dillons, and left just before I started working there. I suppose I must have seen him when he called in for a catch-up now and again.

The three of us chatted for a while, until Adam (who's a pain in the arse when he's had a few) decide to chat up two young girls sitting on the other side of the room. I nudged Lee and said, 'Does he realise it's a gay bar? I think he's barking up the wrong tree with those two.'

Anyway, the five us went into the main room to watch the karaoke. The hostess started things off, and then started canvassing again. Fed up with Adam's half-cut nagging, I chucked a couple of slips in to see what would happen. After the busy year of proofreading and copy-editing I've had, 'Paperback Writer' is very much on my playlist. With Chazza in mind (on the off-chance she'd come in), I went for 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?' by Joe Jackson. And for Adam himself, I debuted a song by the Beautiful South: 'Old Red Eyes is Back.'

I got called up to sing the Joe Jackson first, and I think I made a pretty decent fist of it. Another few people sang, then we had a break and Lee bought us a round. Adam was getting fairly pissed by this stage, and I really didn't fancy having to travel all the way home with him. Time went by; we chatted to the two young lesbians; I sang the Beautiful South song and told the hostess that the next time I came down, I'd try and bring a real singer with me. It'll be a nice change from the Lighthouse and Cambrian every so often.

At about 10.30 I decided to make my excuses and leave. I said goodbye to Lee and the girls, and legged it when Adam went for a piss. Even if he followed me to Cardiff Central, there was a good change I'd give him the slip on the train itself. In the event, for some bizarre reason, he got on at Queen Street, walked straight past me and parked himself in the other carriage.

I read as far as Mountain Ash, when the bugger spotted me and staggered into the seat opposite. I sort-of kept him company until Aberdare, when he wandered off to the taxi rank and I walked up through Robertstown. I got in just after midnight and went straight to bed.

And that, boys and girls, is what I call a Weird Wednesday.