I only ever subscribed to Friends Reunited once. I'm still in touch with most of the people I liked at school and I haven't become so fabulously successful that I want to start contacting those I didn't like to brag about it. I tend to use it more these days to snoop on potential blind dates, check their stories match up. I've had the occasional email from old schoolmates wanting to reacquaint and the standard one from a boy who I had treated contemptously for years, telling me all about his triple-car garage and international playboy lifestyle. So you're still a tosser then, Vince!

It was quite a surprise to see no less than 6 former pupils all in the same pub last night. It's only 3 miles from home in the next village but I don't get out much. I had been to the same place for steak the other week, but I'd gone early and mid-week to minimise the risk of being spotted with Moustache Mark. Last night I was dining with 20 other rugby parents ( I always seem to be the only odd number).

I had a chat with Luggy ( I never can remember his name but it's impossible to forget those ears), danced with Sarah or rather Ruby Summer as she now prefers to be called professionally, caught up on the number of offspring Suzanne has now managed to produce, all bearing her same flaxen hair, beautiful features, vacant from the eyes inwards, hugged another Sarah who I hadn't seen since she sat her O levels in between ante-natal classes and accepted a drink from a lad who looked familiar but I couldn't for the life of me tell you his name. Finally, just as I was about to leave, a loud shout came across the bar, clearly aimed at me. I froze in horror as Mouldy Haley came at me like a heat-seeking missile. I think I was the only person in our year who had escaped her punches and I feared that she was about to remedy that 19 years later.

Instead, she started telling me all about her job on a building site, her three horses and explaining that her behaviour at school all stemmed from an affair that her mother had been having. I was relaxing, almost to the point of a barely visible quiver when she delivered the ultimate body blow. " So, I can see you lead a contented life, Cherrypie!"

It was with this crushing statement ringing in my ears, delivered by a woman so frighteningly fit that her abs were frozen solidly into a tightly regimented six-pack formation, that I set off to walk to the shop to fetch a paper this afternoon. I planned to walk to the Co-Op in the centre of the village, at least half a mile away but I found myself magnetically drawn into the Spar shop, less than 500 yards down the road. I wasn't surprised they didn't have a Sunday Times, most of their customers look like People readers. I carried on down the road.

By the time I'd reached Lincoln Drive, about halfway there, I'd developed shin splints. I had no choice but to keep going, it was downhill and there was always the possibility of stopping for coffee at Clare's in the market place. The Happy Shopper didn't have a Times left either so I dragged myself the last few metres to the Co-Op, relieved to see Clare's shiny new company car sitting outside her flat. I called her to warn her to get the kettle on, and she in turn asked me to get some milk. I then sat for the next couple of hours catching up on each other's gossip and hearing all about her maiden skiing holiday, secretly hoping she might offer to drive me home in her shiny new car. She didn't. It was uphill all the way back and there are fewer shops to stop at, purportedly reading the Notices but really just drawing a breath.

There was nothing for it when I got back but to run myself a deep bath liberally laced with the Molton Brown muscle soak that I had rather extravagantly treated Jack to on my last visit to Chester, and ease myself in for a recuperative hour. I just hope I haven't seized up in the morning.