Dear Diary. I felt worse today than yesterday. Low on energy. Skipped the gym today because of how tired I felt.

I picked up 6-year-old from his acting class this evening and one of the moms gave me a concerned look and said, "You look ill. Really tired and pale."

"I've eaten barely anything the past five days," I said. "Food makes me want to vomit. I tried eating a packet of crisps yesterday but became disgusted by the taste after about the tenth crisp. I think I have food poisoning."

She looked shocked and appalled. "You shouldn't be eating crisps if you have an upset stomach."

I told her I ate cake today, had a raw carrot yesterday, and a big box of salad as well yesterday (to get my five a day). Also today I was eating an all-bran cereal straight out the packet to get fiber. She looked horrified.

"You can't eat fibre with a stomach bug," she said. "You're supposed to avoid fibre."

I didn't know that, I thought fibre was good for your gut health.

Girlfriend gave me a list of things I can safely eat with gastroenteritis: pureed apple, rice, soup, pasta, omelette, white bread, yoghurt, banana, boiled potatoes, chicken and fish. These are all soft foods that are easy to digest. I've never done this special list before. Though come to think of it, I have done it several times with the kids, when they had tummy troubles.

For dinner Girlfriend cooked me a chicken breast and some boiled potatoes. I was so hungry I ate the lot. I also had half a large jar of apple puree. Afterwards, I felt MUCH better. It was like the difference between night and day. It was like the difference between Lazarous lying cold stiff dead on a slab and Lazarous coming back to life, donning shades, and mixing some sick beats with the apostles. I felt happy, far happier than I normally do. It must be how monks feel when they come out of a month-long fast. I feel like I could go out with some cool late teens and party 'til the break of dawn.

Incidentally I found out Girona has clubs today (I was browsing through r/Girona and came across them). I was amazed as I never knew Girona had clubs. There's one photo of a club which is a mass of young cool people dancing euphorically in what looks like the Bronx from Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

I think the next stage of the social group I manage is to meet every Friday or Saturday night at these clubs. I'll wear a bright yellow T-shirt that says "MR SOCIAL" and I'll buy everyone in the club drinks, but I'll escape out the back door before the bartender can charge my card.

Today I went on a hike in the mountains with some people. Before I left the house, I checked the weather forecast and it said: "Today's going to rain". But I couldn't imagine it raining because the weather's been hot and sunny all week, so I put on some shorts and a tank top, rubbed sun cream onto my arms and face, and grabbed my sunglasses. I left my coat behind because obviously it's summer and I don't need a coat.

I drove to the starting point, a hiking area called Gorgues de la Muga, which is just shy of the French border. Three other people were in the car: my English friend Norman; a Brazilian woman in her 50s called Regina; and Regina's adult daughter Marina.

We were almost there when the skies opened and rain began falling in torrents. Lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder rumbled in the distance. I switched the wipers to the fastest speed. Whish wash, whish wash.

"You guys realise we're going to be hiking in this weather?" I said.

I squinted as I drove, trying to see through the rain. Norman was sitting with me upfront. He was saying things like, "Do you know, one of my passions is musicals? I once went to this musical in Germany but I couldn't understand a thing because they were singing in German. And it was a bunch of guys on roller skates and they were holding onto each other pretending to be a train."

Norman's distracting chatter made me miss a turning, which added an extra twenty minutes to the journey. Because of this, we arrived at the park twenty minutes late. A park ranger greeted us at the entrance. He was wearing a cowboy hat with a gold star. He held up his hand. I stopped the car and wound down the window.

"Where are you going?" he said. Raindrops were bouncing off his hat.

"Oh, we're doing a hike," I said as if it was normal to hike in pouring rain. "We're meeting some people up ahead."

"Oh, those people," he said, chuckling, as if "those people" were hiking noobs who had no idea what they were letting themselves in for, and would most likely be dead before the day's end. "Well, just go right on ahead."

"Thanks," I said.

"Oh— and good luck," he added ominously.

We arrived at the hike and got out of the car. Everyone else was already there waiting for us. They were an eclectic bunch of people from all different nationalities. I counted fifteen people, including two Catalan school teachers, a woman from Turkey, a German couple, and a mother and daughter from Poland. I was alarmed to see the daughter looked only about six years old. She was wearing a baby blue poncho with a picture of Skye from Paw Patrol.

Nearly everyone was wearing raincoats, I noticed. One man was even carrying an umbrella. I didn't even have a raincoat, so my tank top and shorts were already getting wet.

A blonde German woman called Daniela had organized the hike.

"You did not read the email?" Daniela asked me.

"What email?" I said.

"We sent everyone an email with the hike information. It said to bring a raincoat."

I didn't read any email.

First Daniela made us all play icebreaker games to get to know each other better, despite us standing in a car park in the rain. After the icebreaker games, she said, "So today I thought we could make things more interesting by doing speed-dating. Pink means you are single and ready to mingle. Blue means you already have a partner and just looking for friends."

I noticed no one took a bracelet, probably because they just wanted to get the hike over with and go home. I wanted to wear a pink bracelet but couldn't because I already have a girlfriend.

Undiscouraged by the lack of interest in her bracelets, Daniela said, "Great! So let's start the hike! But first, has everyone has signed their disclaimers?"

The disclaimers were legal documents protecting Daniela from liability if anyone got injured.

Everyone nodded. I nodded too, but only vaguely, since I hadn't actually signed mine as I couldn't be bothered.

The hike began. But we had only walked two minutes when the rain began pelting down. We all ran for shelter under a tree.

"If it carries on like this, I might go back home," said one woman.

The rain petered off. Next, we had to cross a river. But there was no bridge so we had to wade across.

My hiking boots are supposed to be waterproof. But there's a limit to how waterproof my shoes are. You exceed the limit if you stick the entire boot in a river, as I did.

I offered to carry the six-year-old girl across the river on my shoulders. She happily said yes. But when I stepped into the water, I slipped on a wet rock, and the girl almost fell off my shoulders. Some of the guys had to run over and grab me to keep me steady.

Then came the most dangerous part of the hike: a narrow, steep embankment running alongside the river's edge. The ground was slippery with mud. We progressed slowly, in single file, gripping trees for support. I slipped once or twice but managed to stay upright. A misstep meant tumbling down the slope and possibly into the river. I kept thinking, "This is actually dangerous." It reminded me of the kind of foolhardy misadventure from the British TV show 999, which showed real cases paramedics attend to:

"Tonight on 999: On a rainy day in the mountains, a group of inexperienced hikers set off for what they thought would be a pleasant stroll. Little did they know, the mild rain forecasted by one hiker's weather app would soon become some of the worst rain the hikers had seen for years. The mud on these pathways makes it easy for hikers to slip and lose their footing, which is precisely what happened to this group of unprepared hikers. Their bodies were found several weeks later, bloated with river water."

"Don't worry everyone, this is the hard part," said Daniela, although even she looked uncertain. "It is just a little bit further, and then it gets a lot easier."

The six-year-old girl was struggling to climb a muddy hill.

"You are doing really well, Stella!" said Daniela. "You know, when this is over, I think we will all deserve some ice cream!"

Daniela was trying to be light and positive about the situation but I could tell from her worried expression that she was actually thinking about what would happen if one of us slipped and died and the disclaimer templates she found on the internet didn't hold up in court as legal documents.

But miraculously we all reached the top of the embankment without falling or dying.

"Look at my fingernails!" Norman shrieked like a teenage girl. He held up his fingers and they were covered in mud. His knees and hands were caked with mud too.

We continued walking. The rain continued falling. After an hour of walking in the rain, we stopped at the ruins of a castle for a break. The rain didn't stop; in fact, it was coming down even heavier than ever. We took shelter under some stairs. But the stairs had holes in them and the water got through so we still got soaked. I was more wet than if I'd been on the rapids at Alton Towers.

Next, we waded through another river and walked up a hill in single file. The hill was covered in forest so we had to fight through plants and branches. I felt like Sylvester Stallone in a Vietnamese war jungle, only I didn't have a machete. Norman was in front of me. As Norman pushed through the branches, he didn't notice the branches swinging back at me and hitting me in the face.

"Let's see if we can hear frogs," said Daniela.

I listened. And I could hear frogs. Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. Then I realised it was just the sound of Norman's shoes.

The hill kept going up and up. A rivulet of rainwater ran between our legs and down the hill. I felt as small and bedraggled as a hobbit climbing Mount Doom.

"Look at my t-shirt'," said Norman. His t-shirt showed Kylie Minogue wearing a white dress and singing into a microphone. It was from Kylie's 2001 'Fever' world tour. "It's soaking wet," he complained. Maybe he was hoping we'd have a wet t-shirt competition.

We reached the top of the hill. The six-year-old girl was crying. Her hood was tightly up around her head and a towel was wrapped around her shoulders. She was pale and shivering. I offered to carry her again but she shook her head. She learned quickly, at least.

"Congratulations, we made it!" said Daniela. Her left leg was scratched and bleeding. "This is the top of the mountain. I think we should all celebrate Stella because she is the youngest of the group and she has walked all this way by herself. Let's all clap for Stella."

Everyone clapped and cheered for the six-year-old girl.

"Does anyone else have any compliments they want to give to anyone?" asked Daniela.

"I like Norman's t-shirt," said one man.

"Paul," said Norman, turning to me. "Paul is a great friend and an amazing person."

I nodded.

Then a miracle happened: the rain stopped, the clouds parted, and the sun came out.

"It looks like the rain's stopped," said a Catalan guy called Alex.

Then the clouds regathered and the rain began falling again.

We walked back to our cars in the rain. I walked alongside another Catalan guy called Ivan. He's 45, tall, muscular, and shaven-headed. He works as a teacher at a school for disabled kids.

"I'm looking for a girlfriend but I haven't had a girlfriend in decades." (His actual words). "I want a woman who likes being outdoors, and open to new things, and it's hard to find a woman like that."

There were six women on the hike so I don't know what he was talking about.

We reached our cars. The little 6-year-old girl and her mom arrived last. We watched as they straggled back to the starting point. The girl shot us a murderous glare from under her hood as if she wanted to kill us all in revenge for making her do the hike. But I got her to laugh by pretending to hide a biscuit up my bum so she couldn't have been too upset.

"So that is the end of the hike," said Daniela, smiling pleasantly, as if we'd just enjoyed a sunny stroll in a park instead of a three-hour hike in the rain. "Now comes the worst part!"

Wait, it was going to get even worse??

Still smiling, she pulled out a small card box. "This box is for donations, so if you liked my hike today, please feel free to put in however much you want."

A few people slipped money into the box, but my wallet was empty so I put nothing. Besides, I'll see Daniela later this week because she's also my therapist.

"Well, that's it everyone!" said Daniela, beaming. "Would anyone like to go to a restaurant for lunch?"

No one did. Everyone got in their cars, slammed the doors, and drove off.

Norman, Regina, Marina, and I got in my car. I was shivering from the cold so I turned the heating on. I couldn't wait to get home and have a nice cup of tea. I started the engine and reversed out of the parking spot.

"Does anyone want to do another hike after this one?" I said.

Everyone laughed.

"Personally, I'm sticking to something safer like rock climbing from now on," I added.

An hour later, I was home again. The rain had finally stopped. The entire trip had lasted seven hours but it felt longer.

It felt like the whole thing had been a vivid dream. But the mud on my boots begged to differ.

(I never did bother making a cup of tea.)

Today for the first time in my life I went on a hike. I drove there and gave a lift to three of the other hikers, all young women. Their average age was about 28 whereas I'm 37, so I felt like a dad driving a bunch of teenage girls in a car. We were listening to Daft Punk's One More Time playing on the stereo and so I decided that every time Daft Punk said "one more time" I would go around a roundabout again. We went around this roundabout about ten times. The women in the car loved it, they were screaming and laughing.

Anyway, we got to the hike five minutes late because I was driving the car around a roundabout. Everyone else had already arrived.

The hiking guide was a blonde German woman called Daniela. "Has everyone done hiking before?" she asked.

There were about twenty people in the group and they all murmured things like "yes" and "yep".

I put up my hand. "I haven't."

"You've never been on a hike?" said the guide.

"No," I said. "In fact, I told my girlfriend this yesterday and she said I'm strange because hiking is something everyone's done."

There was laughter from the group.

"Well don't worry," said the hiking guide. "You stay next to me at the front and you will be fine"

The hike started. Immediately I was at the back.

Next to me was an elderly woman with two walking poles. "You don't look like you've never hiked before," she said, eyeing my hiking shoes suspiciously. "You look prepared. You have hiking shoes."

"Those are just my everyday shoes," I said. "Last year I had a strained muscle in my leg and the pain was so bad that I had to use crutches for two weeks. So now I wear hiking shoes and they seem to help. I've even done a gym class in them once when I forgot my trainers."

I found out her name was Regina and she was from Brazil even though she looked Chinese. It turned out we go to the same gym, but I've never seen her because she does Zumba classes and I don't do Zumba classes because I have no natural ability for dancing.

"Did you go to the party yesterday?" I asked her.

"What party?"

"At the gym. There was a party because the gym is twenty years old."

"I didn't get invited to a party," she said. "Maybe it's because I do zumba classes. Zumba people don't get invited to parties," she said, laughing.

As the hike went on, I spoke to pretty much everyone there: a mom and her teenage son from California; a high school English teacher from Poland; a Croatian girl who had 2 dogs, 3 cats, and 4 chickens at home ("one of the chickens is a rooster, the others are his bitches" she said); a Russian woman; a biologist from Germany. It felt like speed dating, except instead of looking for a life partner, I was meeting potential friends.

We stopped at the top of a hill for meditation. It was quite a view: the wide blue sea lay before us, the waves sparkling like diamonds in the sunlight.

"Now, if everyone wants to sit down and close their eyes," said Daniela.

Okay, so much for the view then.

We sat down on the ground and closed our eyes.

"Now put your hands on the knees."

Did she say to put our hands on our knees or on Daniela?

Daniela read through a meditation script that she later admitted she'd made using ChatGPT. I didn't feel particularly relaxed; I was more worried about trying to remember everyone's names.

After meditation, we carried on walking. I was walking in front of an Italian woman called Cristina.

"I like your socks," she said.

My socks had little pictures of pizza slices on them.

"All my socks have pictures on them," I said. "At home I have ones with burgers on them."

We walked and talked and I learned she's doing a PhD in tourism. But she's going back to Italy soon.

"My boyfriend," she said, "His English is not so good. Sometimes he say me, 'I am hungry' and another day he say 'I am angry' and I cannot tell the difference"

"Just feed him some food," I said. "If he's hungry he'll eat it. If he's angry it'll calm him down because Italians love food."

She laughed. "That is good idea."

After that I spoke to a Polish school teacher called Irena. I told her I have some degree of autism. She told me about an autistic boy at her school. She said he gets bullied by the other kids. I had to blink back tears because he reminded me of myself when I was at school.

It was about four hours in when the hiking guide said, "Guys, I'm really sorry, but I just realised we're going the wrong way. We all have to turn around.'

Everyone turned around. I was now at the front of the group instead of the back.

"Okay," said the guide. "It looks like Paul's leading the way."

No pressure then. There was a path leading into a forest so I took one step forward, then another step. Step onto this rock, step down, step over that tree root. Jump up onto the boulder, jump off. Soon I was enthusiastically clambering onto fallen trees like Christopher Robin in the 100 Acre Wood. Hiking is easy. It's just walking. Everyone was following me. This was great.

We reached a cove. Stony beach, blue water. We stripped down to our bathing costumes and swam into the sea. I'm scared of jellyfish.

"Don't step on the black stuff, there could be sea urchins," someone shouted.

Oh great, another thing to worry about.

We floated in the water for a bit and a German guy called Kai asked me, "So Paul, how's your first hike going?"

"It's easier than I thought it would be," I said. "Hiking's just walking, isn't it? Which means I hike every day. I hike my sons to school. I hike to shops to buy food. I hike to the toilet. I hike four steps from the sofa to get the TV remote and then I hike four steps back. So I'm hiking all the time. In fact, I've been hiking all my life."

Everyone laughed.

"What did you think hiking was going to be?" someone else asked, their head bobbing up and down in the water.

"I don't know," I said. "Walking up a mountain. Wearing boots with studs in them. Using ropes. A goat called Gwendoline who carries our stuff. A mountain sherpa named Pancho who says things like 'too much snow, too dangerous, we must go back'. That kind of thing."

There were two children swimming next to a buoy in the distance. One of the people on the hike, a 30-year-old Peruvian man, said to me, "Let's go touch that buoy," said Cesar.

I hoped he said 'buoy' and not 'boy'.

We swam over to the children. Then I realised they weren't children at all. They were two women from the social group: Maria and Maya.

We swam over to some rocks. Maria climbed out of the sea and onto the rocks. She climbed up onto the highest rock and dived into the water. She emerged moments later, smiling. I decided to do it too. I climbed up on the rock and jumped off. Everyone clapped when I emerged from the water.

This is good, I thought. The water was cold, the jellyfish were probably surrounding me, but this was good, I felt alive. I decided this was even the high point of my year so far. I didn't feel like a middle-aged dad anymore. I felt like I was just me again.

We all walked back to our cars. By this point, it was early evening.

"Does anyone want to get a drink?" asked the hiking guide.

"I told my girlfriend I'd be home by now," I said.

I phoned Girlfriend. "The people from the hike are going to a bar together so I wondered if it's okay if I stay a couple more hours?" I said.

I heard her tut down the phone. "You said you would be home by now," she said. "Your children are asking if you'll be home for dinner."

"I should be home for seven," I said. "It's just to get a drink at the bar."

"Just do whatever you want," she said and hung up.

But you only live once so I went with the rest of the group to a bar. The nearest bar was at a caravan park so we drove there. Signs read things like "Open vanaf 8u30 Elke ochtend verse". At first, I thought dyslexic people had written the signs, but it turned out the signs were just in Dutch. Groups of Dutch people were watching a Euro 2024 football match. The men were bald and the women were overweight. They looked exactly like English people: fat, wrinkled, and pink from sunburn. In the UK, they'd be dinner ladies and Greggs bakers. It was only when they spoke that you could tell they were Dutch.

I sat down and had a beer. I felt exhausted. Not from hiking but from being social all day.

The other hikers were talking about something when I overheard, "In Germany, I had fuck all the time but here I cannot find any fuck".

Okay. What.

"Oh my god, I love fuck too," said an Italian woman. "I used to have fuck every day after lunch."

What is going on.

"Fuck's so good, it's a shame they don't have it here."

"I love taking photos of fuck and putting the photos on Instagram!"

"I put fuck in my cakes."

Did she just say she puts fuck in her cakes?

"Excuse me," I said. "Did you just say you put fuck in your cakes?"

There was a moment of silence. Then everyone burst into laughter.

"Quark," said a German girl. "We're talking about quark."

It turned out quark is a type of cheese with the taste and texture of yoghurt. In my defence, they were pronouncing 'quark' just like 'fuck'.

Maybe the guy who invented it went "FUCK, that's good. I'm calling it 'Fuck'." But when he tried to copyright the name, the man at the copyright office said, "You can't call it that, mate. We'll have complaints from people. You can call it 'quark' instead."

When I walked back to the car, one of the tyres looked deflated. And then a Russian girl called Kristina pointed out a scratch on the car.

Fucking Dutch people, I thought. First they let the air out my tyre and now they've scratched my car. What's wrong with these people? Now I won't get home in time to say goodnight to my son. I hope they're happy.

But it turned out the scratch was already there, and the tyre wasn't deflated after all.

I love Dutch people, they're the best in the world.

We left late because a car attached to a caravan had to reverse backward out of the park gate. I had no social energy left to talk on the way home so I drove in silence while the three girls in the back of the car talked between themselves. I was too socially exhausted to take anymore. It was too much for my autistic brain to have to handle. The girls talked about:

- a hot guy from the group today (not me)

- a creepy guy called Piero who tells all the girls they're beautiful and sends them private messages that say things like "I hope you had a good day today"

They probably talk about me when I'm not there. I imagine it's like this:

"That guy Paul, always so funny."

"Yeah, but like he's so old, right? He has children already. Isn't he like 50 or something? Did you see the white hairs in his beard? I mean, why is he hanging out with us if he's so old? And another thing, did you see his socks? His socks had pictures of pizza slices on them. What kind of guy wears pizza socks?"

I finally arrived home at 9 pm. The first thing I did was pull off my shoes. My feet stank of sweat. Then I checked the kids; they were already in bed. Girlfriend was angry at me for staying out so late. But after an hour she wasn't too mad anymore so I guess I'm okay.

Before I went to bed I thought about the autistic boy at Irena's school being bullied and I found myself crying. I cried for about five minutes. It was heavy crying, with tears and mucus. The last time I cried this heavily was over a decade ago.

I sent Irena a message asking her to look out for the autistic boy:

Sad to think about the autistic kid at your school getting bullied. Made me genuinely cry just now. Do me a favour and look out for him if you can.

I went to bed.

Spain's biggest theme park is Port Aventura. I live in Spain, and every now and then an advert for Port Aventura comes on TV here — usually at Halloween or Christmas — and it's your usual theme park stuff: roller coasters, candy floss, a man exposing himself from behind some bushes.

I've never much felt the need to go to Port Aventura, but Girlfriend recently bought some cheap tickets and that's how I found myself driving my girlfriend and two sons to Port Aventura on a cold New Year's Day morning.

By the way, our car is electric, which means it doesn't go very fast or very far. This was made evident when we were only halfway to Port Aventura and we had to stop to charge the car in an industrial park. We all stood around the car in a cold deserted car park, waiting for the car to charge enough for us to be on our way.

Girlfriend needed a wee but there were no toilets around so she did a wee crouching down next to a tree.

We walked to a nearby cafe. The cafe was shut.

6-year-old kicked a vending machine hoping a bottle of Fanta would fall out. It didn't.

"Can we go now Daddy?" said 6-year-old.

"Not yet," I said. "We have to let the car charge a little bit more."

"I think it's charged enough, no?" said Girlfriend.

"It hasn't charged enough yet," I said. "If we left now, we'd run out of battery before we even got there."

I made everyone wait another twenty minutes while the car charged. Finally, we set off again.

We made it to Port Aventura. There was a statue of the Port Aventura mascot, Woody the Woodpecker.

"If we hadn't stopped to charge the battery, the car would have run out of battery by now," I said. I waited for Girlfriend or 6-year-old to congratulate me on my decision to stop and charge the car, but no one said anything, not even a "Well done Paul you were right to stop the car."

I parked the car while Girlfriend checked into the hotel and collected our park tickets. Half an hour later we were entering through the park's turnstiles. Now we were in Port Aventura itself. In the distance were two rollercoasters, one red and one blue. We walked past a big lake that was supposed to represent the Mediterranean Sea, even though the real Mediterranean sea was only less than two miles away. They could have built the park by the real sea and then they wouldn't have had to build the lake.

We walked for about twenty minutes without passing a single ride. Meanwhile I could see the big looping rollercoasters in the background. No matter how far we walked, the roller coasters were always out of reach; they never got any closer. We passed closed restaurants. We passed closed shops. Still no rides.

The park is divided into different areas of the world, including China, Polynesia, the American West, and of course, one of the most important nations in the world, Sesame Street. I went to see a Sesame Street show with 1-year-old. Sesame Street characters were dancing on a stage. The show was led by a lady wearing high heels, a gold sequined top, and a ruffled skirt. She had long brunette hair. Gold stars were painted on her face. She wore tights that made her legs look shiny. She was smiley and enthusiastic; she had the same happy energy as a children’s TV presenter. I spent most of the show watching her instead of the Sesame Street characters. I was particularly mesmerized by her skirt. It came up to her knees, and every time she gave a twirl, everyone could see her white panties. No wonder all the dads were watching the show so intensely.

Then I took 1-year-old to see a Christmas show. The show was like a circus but with so much stuff happening on stage, I wasn't sure where to watch. At least when I was watching the Sesame Street show I knew to watch the lady's bum.

We walked some more and finally we arrived at the two big roller coasters. There they were, looming above us, like the skeletons of gigantic dinosaurs. It felt like a view you'd see as a placemark on Google Earth, not in real life. Every minute or so, a carriage flew past with screaming people.

Girlfriend said I could go on a rollercoaster while she took the kids. So I walked over to the roller coasters. The red roller coaster only had a ten-minute queue so I went on that one. I didn't enjoy it very much. The G-forces squashed me down into my seat like a mechanical press on each inversion. My head felt like gravel was rattling around inside it, which might have been brain cells coming loose.

Evening fell. We went to the hotel early for dinner. Almost no one else was there yet. There was a buffet. I ate three plates of food, including a hot dog, chips, pizza, and tacos. It was wonderful. There was a little statue of Oscar the Grouch in a Santa hat sitting next to the pizza. An hour later and I was still eating, so Girlfriend took the kids to the hotel room while I finished my third plate of food.

When I couldn't eat any more, I started heading back to the hotel room. But I couldn't find the building. There were too many buildings. They had names like Iguana and Jaguar. I went into one building. The sound of Christmas music was playing over a stereo in the corridor. I entered the lift, went up a floor, and left the building on the other side. I stumbled around in the dark, swearing. Eventually, I found my hotel room. The kids were asleep. Girlfriend was on her phone. I took a bath and went to bed.

***

The next morning, we went back to the dining room for breakfast. It was the most wonderful breakfast buffet I've ever seen. There were pancakes, sausages, tomatoes, baked beans, yoghurts, and croissants. I ate everything, including three churros with chocolate.

After breakfast, we went back to the theme park. We arrived two minutes before the park opened. A big crowd was outside the gates like the crowd outside Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. "LET US IN!" I shouted. The gates opened and everyone flooded in. I gave a whoop of delight.

Our plan was to go on a ride called Sesame Street: Street Mission before the queues got too long. So we headed straight to Sesame Street. "SESAME STREET!" I shouted in excitement. Girlfriend told me to stop shouting.

We reached the front of the queue for the ride. I had heard you use a gun on this ride. I was ready to shoot Big Bird in his kneecaps but unfortunately, we weren't given a gun but a "clue detector" instead, which I chose to believe was a gun. When Big Bird appeared I took off my 3D glasses so I could get a proper look at him. Big Bird was just as intimidating up close as I thought he'd be. I shot his kneecaps a few times with the clue detector. I then spent the rest of the ride aimlessly shooting at cookies and I got the highest score.

I was feeling bad from all the sugar I had eaten. Churros and pancakes for breakfast, a Belgian waffle with chocolate sauce and ice cream for lunch, and a large Granny Smith apple. Luckily the park was so spread-out I could burn off the excess sugar just by walking between attractions.

I went to see a bubble show with 1-year-old. On the stage was a lady blowing bubbles. All kinds of bubbles: soap bubbles, fire bubbles, giant bubbles, long bubbles. People trapped inside bubbles. Bubbles that the lady plucked apart to form new smaller bubbles. The only bubble she didn't have was a cube-shaped bubble. 1-year-old fell asleep about ten minutes into the show.

Girlfriend looked after the kids while I went to Ferrari Land. Ferrari Land is a Ferrari-themed theme park next to Port Aventura. Now, I don't like Ferraris, or any particular make of car for that matter, but Ferrari Land was included in our tickets so it would have been a waste not to visit it.

And, more importantly: Ferrari Land is the home of the FASTEST, TALLEST ROLLER COASTER IN EUROPE.

I entered Ferrari Land. Everything was red — the colour of Ferrari — from the buildings to the rides. I could immediately see Europe's fastest, tallest roller coaster. It's called Red Force and it stands in the centre of Ferrari Land like a giant K'Nex penis.

The electronic queue clock said there was a 30-minute wait time, which seemed an incredibly short wait for the fastest, tallest roller coaster in Europe (I once wasted two hours of life standing in line just for a ride on Air at Alton Towers.) so I joined the queue for Red Force. In front of me was a man missing a tooth. Maybe he'd been Red Force too many times. A girl next to me had two crutches. She had definitely been on the ride too many times.

I got to the front of the queue for Red Force. It was time for me to go on. I put everything in my coat pockets and zipped them up. I was feeling excited. I felt like a teenager again instead of a middle-aged man possibly suffering from prediabetes. I sat down in the car of Red Force. I pulled down my restraint. We waited. We waited. A light turned green. The car started moving forward slowly. Then without warning, the car shot forward like a bullet. It went from zero to 112 miles per hour in five seconds. My eyeballs were squashed into my head. Then the car shot straight up into the sky. The wind whipped my face. I screamed.

The car stopped briefly at the very top of the ride. Then the ride shot back down again. The wind was threatening to rip my face clean off my head.

It was all over. Thirty seconds had passed since the ride had begun. I got up and felt my face. Thankfully, it was still attached properly. I left the park feeling like those thirty seconds had been the single greatest moment of my life.

I wanted to ride on Red Force a second time but instead, I returned to Port Aventura and found my family. They were in a play area. 1-year-old was climbing up a ramp and 6-year-old was sliding down a slide, which seemed tame compared to the roller coaster I'd just been on.

"Ferrari Land's really good," I enthused to Girlfriend. "There's all these rides but there's no one on them. It's like the park's half-deserted."

"6-year-old's feeling tired," she said. "I think it would be best if we go home."

Night fell. We left the park. As we walked to the car, I took one last, longing look at Red Force. I realised I still had the Ferrari Land entrance ticket in my jeans pocket.

"Do you think I could go back to the park and have another go?" I asked Girlfriend.

But Girlfriend didn't hear me. She and the two kids had already walked off.

I didn't get to go on it again.

We drove home.

So that was Port Aventura.

Dear Diary. Today I've dragged my family to a car boot sale. Literally no one wants to go but me.

"It'll be really good," I say. "It's the biggest car boot sale in the UK."

The website says it's "UK'S BIGGEST CAR BOOT". However, I neglect to mention to my family that when I googled this car boot sale, there were almost zero results. Perhaps the organizers are making up self-aggrandasisng lies about themselves to get more people to come. But surely they wouldn't do this. Surely they are a respectable car boot company.

My dad's driving us to there in his car. We arrive at a muddy field. There's a beige Citroën C4 in front of us.

"Move!" my dad tuts.

The Citroën starts moving, but slowly.

"He's driving like it's new," my dad says with disgust.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"His car, it's fifteen years old but he's driving it like it's brand new. Bloody move!" he shouts.

Finally, we're at the car boot sale. I think we're a bit late though because most people are packing up and leaving.

I haven't been to car boot sale for about twenty years. As soon as I step out the car, it all comes back to me. The familiar smell of chips from a chip stand.

There's also a man in a van selling meat and shouting things like, "Yeah, you can have that as well, and that too. That's £30, love."

A ten-year-old Asian boy with a white turban on his head sees me and says, "Want some toilet paper?"

"What?" I say, confused.

"We're selling toilet paper, five pounds."

Next to him is a pile of packets of what looks like toilet paper, but on closer inspection turns about to be kitchen roll.

"It's kitchen roll," I point out.

"Oh yeah, sorry. I meant kitchen roll. It's five pounds."

I have a closer look at the kitchen roll. There's 24 rolls in a packet, which is quite a lot of rolls. 24 rolls of kitchen paper for £5 sounds good. I think about buying some for my dad, but then I get an image of my dad jumping up and down in anger and pulling out the last of his hair while shouting, "WHAT DID YOU GET ALL THOSE FOR? BLOODY HELL PAUL, ARE YOU STUPID?" So in the end I leave them.

5-year-old has a good get-rich-quick scheme: "Daddy, we can sell your hat," he says. "We can sell it for a thousand million pounds." I should point out it's just a normal baseball cap.

I'm walking around but lots of people are putting their stuff back into the cars and packing up. I think we got here too late. It's noon now and the car boot sale's supposed to finish at 1 PM, but I guess people have been here from 5 AM and they want to go home.

5-year-old has a go on an inflatable slide - ten slides for £2 - while I go and have a look around what's left of the car boot sale.

"How much's that?" asks a guy, pointing to a pebble art set.

"A pound mate, if you want it."

He wants it. He pays the pound.

It's hard to tell what people are selling at this car boot because when I try to focus on the tables in front of me, my eyes glaze over due to disinterest. It's like the perception filter around the TARDIS that prevents people from noticing it, thus allowing the Doctor to leave the TARDIS in the middle of a busy London street while he goes off on an adventure. For the sake of immersing you, reader, more fully into this car boot sale, I focus on the bric-a-brac long enough to write a list of what people are selling: assorted clothing, books by Josephine Cox, a book called A Rose Amongst Thorns, faded soft toys, a Bissell magic room vacuum cleaner which looks like it's from the 1980s, decorative plates, a Coronation Street DVD game, Books about the SAS, DVDs, packets of Lockets, and Colgate smiles baby toothpaste.

I'm forced to admit that it's all a bit crap.

"How much is that bab?" says a man pointing to a kettle.

"It's a pound, but it needs a new battery," says the woman at the stall.

"Ah right. Alright bab," he says, walking away.

Jesus, they're selling kitchen appliances that don't even work.

I buy a dot-to-dot book for 5-year-old because he likes doing dot-to-dots. It costs me twenty pence but half the dot-to-dots have already been completed.

"Here 5-year-old, I got you this," I say.

5-year-old sits in the pushchair with a pen and tries to complete the dot to dots but he gives up after five minutes. Perhaps it's because it's a dot to dot book desinged for adult.

I don't think I'll be coming back here again.

In my final year at university, I was virtually friendless. One guy on my course, Rich (short for Richard), must have taken pity on me because he started inviting me to the pub to hang out with his friends, Colin and Rob, who were also in our course. Rich’s girlfriend, Sarah, often joined us too.

Rob, however, didn’t seem to like me much; in fact, he almost seemed to resent my presence. One night, when I got up from my chair and announced I was heading home, Rob let out a cheer, as if his favorite football team had just scored a goal.

Sarah was one of the most attractive women I've ever seen. She had blonde hair, soft eyes, and a girl-next-door vibe. She looked a bit like Sheridan Smith, but without the air of council estate menace that said if you got on her wrong side, she'd smash you in the face with a Tesco's pork shoulder. No, Sarah was an angel straight from heaven. How Rich and her were a couple, I'll never know, as Rich was the complete opposite of her: whereas her hair was golden, his was greasy; her face was glowing, his was chubby; her eyes were gentle and soft, his were bleary and bloodshot. Plus he had this enormous chin like Jay Leno's, he wore XXL shirts and I heard this one time, he broke a children's swing just by sitting on it. It was like Scarlett Johansson dating the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine. Like Princess Fiona and Shrek. Beauty and the Beast. These things may happen in movies but they just don't happen in real life. I once told Rich I thought his girlfriend was hot, and he grinned as if understood perfectly what I meant. Then he said, "You should ask her for a shag. She'd probably say yes." I never did ask his girlfriend for a shag, but who knows? Maybe she would have said yes. If she fucked a whale like Rich it wasn't too far a stretch to imagine she'd fuck a weirdo like me.

One night we went to the pub where we each drank roughly six pints of beer. Then we drove to a strip club in Rich's car. The memory of that car trip is strangely clear to me. I was in the back seats with Rob and Colin. Rich was driving. Sarah was next to Rich, in the passenger seat. Rich, Rob, and Colin (the "lads") were chatting away to each other about the upcoming strip club. Meanwhile, I was silent, as I almost always was back then. I knew I should talk but I felt anxious, as I did in most social situations, and I could never think of a single thing to say. But I've Got a Feeling by The Black Eyed Peas was playing on the car's stereo and I had the alcohol from six pints of beer coursing through my veins. It was the perfect song for that night because indeed I did feel that it was going be a "good good night".

We pulled up in a car park in Birmingham city center. The strip club was called Legs 11. It didn't look like a strip club. The building was part of Birmingham's Chinatown and as such, it was in the style of a Chinese pagoda, with multi-tiered sloping roofs the colour of jade, and elaborate red patterns on the outside walls. It looked like a place Buddhist monks would come to pray.

I'd passed this strip club many times in my life, as I'd grown up in Birmingham and often passed it on my trips to the city centre. But I've never dared to go inside.

First, we had to pay a ten-pound entrance fee. This was not ten pounds between us. This was ten pounds each. But I thought it must be worth it, and besides, I'd never been to a strip club before so at least it'd be a new experience.

Then we were in the strip club proper. My eyes fell first on a woman walking down a flight of stairs, a woman who was unusual in that she didn't have any clothes on, apart from a pair of knickers.

Rich saw me looking and nudged me. "I love strip clubs because whenever I walk in, there's like a pair of tits in your face. And it's like, whoa! A pair of tits!"

Unfortunately, I didn't share Rich's enthusiasm. I'd had one beer too many at the pub earlier and now was feeling rather strange. On the one hand, I felt surprisingly sober, but on the other hand, I felt completely devoid of any emotion, as if a surgeon had injected local anesthetic into the part of my brain that produced joy, fear, anger, sympathy, and all the rest of the emotions, and had left me feeling dead and numb inside. I felt nothing. It's a strange reaction to drinking six pints of beer, as you'd think I'd be drunk-dancing instead, pinching the girls' arses, causing a scene and generally having the time of my life, as drunk people do, but no.

The next thing I knew, I was being handcuffed on one of my wrists. I looked up to see a woman dressed in a bikini and a police hat. She didn't seem to be a real police officer, but if she was, then she should have been reprimanded for failing to wear her uniform because she was basically naked except for a few pieces of fabric covering her rude bits.

The woman gently tugged on the handcuffs to indicate she wanted me to go with her. I looked around at my mates for help. They were all watching and laughing. The woman tugged again, harder this time. So I smiled, shrugged, put my drink on the bar, and went with her. I decided to go with it. I thought my mates must have paid her to do this. I thought they must have slipped her some money and told her to come and give me a lapdance.

She led me behind a curtain to a private room, except it wasn't private because there was already a rich-looking guy in a suit getting a lapdance from one of the club's other dancers. He paid no attention at all to me as the bikini-clad police officer led me into the room and pushed me down into the chair.

And thus began my first-ever lap dance. I felt no emotion at all - no desire, no lust, not even any good-natured "this is all a bit of fun" type of feeling. I felt completely dead inside. The stripper removed her bra, revealing her boobs and nipples. Instead of feeling aroused, I just thought, "There's some boobs". I was ready to call it a night and go to bed. But the stripper had other ideas. She rubbed herself up against my crotch. I felt awkward and sat there, pretending to smile and enjoy it.

"Do you want me to keep going?" she asked.

Her question took me by surprise. Had she sensed I wasn't in the mood for a lap dance? I didn't want to hurt her feelings so I replied, "Sure." Besides, my friends had already paid for it. So she carried on.

At one point, she put her crotch near my face and moved her g-string out the way to show me her vagina. And there it was. The brownish, meaty outer labia; the pink, tender inner labia; and the vaginal opening itself, an ugly old man's lips. Do other men really find these attractive? I thought. It was just about the least sexy thing I could imagine. It was a turn-off, not a turn-on. Her vagina resembled the fatty part of a raw whole chicken from Tesco, like the part you'd cut off and give to your dog. Weren't vaginas just supposed to be holes you put your dick inside? Why did it have all these disgusting, fleshy flaps around it?

"Do you want me to keep going?" she asked again.

It seemed weird that she repeated that, so I said, "I'm sorry? Is this paid for?"

She looked surprised and then laughed. "No," she said.

My heart sank. I thought my friends had set this up for me and paid for it. It turned out I was wrong.

"How much is it?" I asked.

"Forty," she said.

"What?"

"Forty pounds."

Forty of the Queen's pounds just for a fifteen minutes lap dance? Jesus Christ. It would have taken a minimum-wage worker labouring for an entire day to earn the same amount of money I'd just blown in fifteen minutes. Luckily I had my student loan, but still; even that was finite, and in theory, I'd have to pay it off someday.

I stumbled up from the chair. "Can I pay now?" I asked. She led me back outside the private room and to the main bar area, where a big, bald tough-looking guy who might have been a bartender entered 40.00 into a card reader and then plonked it down in front of me. I swiped my bank card through the reader and then entered my PIN, making sure to shield the numbers.

Finally, I went back to my friends. Rich gave me a high five. "How did it go?" he asked.

"It cost 40 pounds," I said.

He laughed. "Yeah, they're expensive," he said.

"I thought one of you'd paid for it," I said. "Because she handcuffed me, like one of you'd paid for it."

But Rich had stopped listening to me and was now staring at a pair of breasts across the room.

A few more girls approached us after that, sensing my money like sharks smelling drops of blood in the water. They were like those charity people on the street who ask if you have a minute to talk about ending famine for a direct debit of just five pounds a month, except these girls were wearing a lot less clothing. I'd already spent a small fortune, wasn't that enough? I wasn't spending any more money here. It was too expensive. Even the drinks were ten pounds each.

"So, do you want a dance?" she asked. She had long blonde hair and fake eyelashes and she wore a weird, unflattering bikini thing that had strings wrapping around her waist several times, like a dominatrix.

"Sorry," I said. And then I said, "I'm gay."

"Really?" she said in surprise. "You're gay?"

"Yep," I said, and took a sip from my glass.

"I can't believe it," she said. "You don't look gay."

My hair was a mess, my clothes were ugly, and I had no effeminate qualities whatsoever.

I smiled and shrugged.

She walked away. After she'd gone, Rob said, "What were you talking about? You're not gay."

"Yeah, but they don't know that," I said. "And like this, they won't pester me for another lapdance."

Rich laughed. "That's a good idea, that."

Anyway, Rich drove us all home and I woke up the next day with a hangover.

The Legs 11 closed a few years later. A police raid uncovered that the staff were spiking the drinks of men with methadone and then charging thousands of pounds on their credit cards, like in the movie Hustlers. Plus the owner was also linked to Albanian organised crime gangs.

Rich and Sarah? They got married, had three kids — Wilfred, Rupert, Penelope — and are still together now. I really wish the best for them.