Tuesday December 28, 1976

I have an alarm call at 7.30 and let myself out of the Lawson residence and go across the frost covered playing fields to the bus stop. Oh how cold it is! Stand until 8.30 and then, after waiting for an hour without a sign of public transportation of any kind, I decide to call it a day and go back to bed at David's. The house [on Tennyson Street] has a yale lock, and from this you can surmise that I am prevented from re-entering the aforementioned house and no amount of banging on my part could awaken Mr Lawson or Tosca [the toy poodle]. So, I went back across the frosty field to the bus stop and stood waiting until 9.20am. Nearly 2 hours at a cold bus stop.

Work was dead and I don't know why I bothered going in. At 12 I left for home again. [Uncle] John, Sheila, Valerie and Auntie Mabel are with Mum and Dad, JPH, Susan and Peter N. Sheila looks slimmer. She's had a hysterectomy or something. We all have lunch together and then go down to John & Maria's. Lynne comes at 7pm. Party at John & Maria's is very good. Maria has put on a good buffet. The house is packed with Rhodeses. Maria gives a recital on the piano. Home at a late hour after de-frosting Lynne's car. Surely one of the coldest nights since the Creation? Not including the Ice Age that is.

-==-

Friday December 27, 1974

Unusual day. Wake up at 10.30 feeling void of all life and health, but do not lay around to dwell on my condition. Downstairs David is preparing breakfast and poor Sandy is in a pile on the lounge carpet with Tosca looking on.

I devour an unwanted breakfast and John attempts to remove the remnants of this early mornings fiasco with a tin of beans and toast from his person. Leave the Lawson residence at about 12 o'clock and David comes back for a drink. Sit in front of the TV all afternoon not taking much notice of the goings on and contemplating the Christine/Philip break-up. She rings later on and confirms it. He came to see her this morning and begged her to reconsider, but she refused. Naturally, the poor girl's upset, but the bulk of my sympathy goes to poor Philip. He's a different character to Christine. I think she can be hard, whilst he's almost child-like in his affection for her. He'll be shattered by this well and truly.

Arrange to go to the Hare at 8.15. Dave's collecting me, and Christine is making her own way down. It's a quiet night really. John, David, Sandy, Christine and myself go to the Hare, then to the Queen's at Apperley. See Judith B's car on the drive, but she's not in the pub in question. Find a fish and chip shop open in Horsforth and we sit about troughing like greedy pigs. Home and tucked up in bed for 12.

-==-