Neath

My passport has expired, so I had to go to the Post Office and pay extra to apply for a driving licence. Then the assistant did it all online, anyway, on a tablet.

For my photo, I had to go and stand in a shabby corner of the room partitioned off from the shop floor, and each time the girl took a snap, it was pleasantly awkward as she had to wait a minute or two to receive a response from the website, which kept rejecting the shot. The fourth time, she used the flash.

These days there are so many people in receipt of benefit one feels one should say 'thank you for your service' to anyone working, such as the aforementioned girl of about 23 serving me for minimum wage. But it's a far cry from the heyday of the high street in Neath. She was dressed in whatever most people answer the front door in at the weekend, and these days the Post Office is just at the back of WHSmith, which is still cosplaying a newsagent, confectioner, stationer, purveyor of board games, etc., but is actually more or less doppler shifted and appears to have no sense of discernible pride in its existence.

M&S was covered in black. 'We're now closed,' a sign said. 'Thank you and Goodbye.' Seemed a bit abrupt.

One shop in a side street had a note in the door saying 'CASH PREFFERED PLEASE' [ sic ].

An empty shop for sale offered 'POTENTIAL 1st and 2nd FLOOR RESIDENTIAL ACCOMADATION' [ sic ].

Sick.

There was a pungent smell of weed near St. Thomas.

I really wanted to sit in Victoria Gardens and enjoy it for what it is, but that would have meant damp trousers.

The 1848 Mason's lodge, derelict and fragile with a single eye on the middle of its brow, was quite the reminder that Neath is underrated. The bus station has its own fascinating culture of bravado teenagers smoking and making too much noise and alcoholics hustling and conferring with each other. A flat-screen display tells you when the bus is coming, and it actually comes and takes you away from this curious fantasy.

Back home, I rang Mum and wished her a happy birthday. She's 72 but didn't seem to know for sure how old she was until she really thought about it.

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