Thursday January 15, 1976

When John came in from the pub last night we had a very intimate chat about our relationship with the ladies, and the following items of interest were disclosed. 1). Mrs P(hillips) went to see Molly Macdonald last Thursday afternoon and sat ranting and raving about the way I used Carole and how I let her buy all my Christmas presents and how I let her take me out all through the week and how I let her buy all the drinks and how I have the cheek to arrange a holiday without taking Carole with me!! Maria was witness to all this defamatory chit-chat and was angered by the way Mrs P started making the same claims about John. This incident coincides with Carole's behaviour on Friday. John also told me that Carole wasn't __________.
I was horrified and laid awake for hours thinking of the evilness of some people, and how some people have the nerve to go to church on a Sunday and then act like the devil for the rest of the week. Has Carole given her mother this impression, or does Mrs P just assume that this is going on? John also commented on how much Carole has changed, as did David at the weekend. _______________________.

I woke up today at 12.45pm. Feel a bit better after a long sleep and have fish and chips with John. Mum comes in from work at 1.30 and when Dad gets up I tell them about the things Mrs P's been saying. Dad gives me his advice and talks about women in general and the complex way they look at things. Mum says it's obvious that Carole thinks a lot more of me than I do of her and advises me to have a change if I feel bored and suffocated. I do feel suffocated and wish I were free of the ties, and I intend doing something about it shortly. OK, I like Carole, but marriage is not quite on for me, mate. Dad says he is so lucky because he met Mum when he was 16 and decided immediately that he wanted nobody else. Love like that must ne great.
However, I'm longer in the tooth and harder to match up with anyone.

Carole rings twice and is in tears on both occasions. I just feel useless and clumsy listening to a weeping, wailing woman slobbering down the phone in inaudible moans. We must get to the bottom of this trouble because it's getting on my nerves.

--==--

Wednesday January 14, 1976

I am completely shattered with cold. My nose glows like a lighthouse all day long and I come home and stagger around the place sneezing and wheezing like an 85 year-old. If I see the month out it will be a miracle. It's always the same every January. Christmas is over and done with and it's as if my resistance tries to commit suicide at the thought of no revelry and tinsel for yet another year.

The holiday is settled anyway. I rang Pete at 7.40am to receive his assent to my booking the Pacific Hotel, San Antonio, Ibiza, from June 27 to July 11, 1976. With his assent given I rang Denise, who at once set the whole system of booking into operation. I'm paying my £10 deposit to her tomorrow night.

Carole rings me at work at 4pm. She's still upset about the events of Saturday night and doesn't believe I've forgiven her foolishness. A child she is, nothing more, nothing less. No argument would have arisen if she had only come to me with her grievance in the first place.

Go to bed at 10pm and decide not to go to work in the morning. John comes in at 10.30 and tells me a horrible tale, the details of which I will recount to you in detail on the next page. But let me say this; something is going to be said and a certain line of action is to be taken which will make certain people waken up round here.

-==-

Tuesday January 13, 1976

I go into work feeling somewhat under the weather. What is more, I feel fed up to the back teeth with everything at the moment and fancy returning to a good bachelor existence.

Carole's had a good innings since last July, and I think it's about time I let someone else have a bat.

I rang Denny and re-booked the holiday once and for all. June/July is when we go.

At home I sit in the dining room all evening busily glueing photographs into a scrap book. It brings back to mind all the good times we had in 1973-4 and makes my present situation seem mundane, boring and dead.

One would think I'd been married for ages by the way I'm going on, but that's the way I feel at the moment.

Retire at midnight with my task still incomplete.

-==-

Monday January 12, 1976

Not a spectacular day at all really. I ring Denny about the San Antonio holiday and she gets us in, provisionally, at the Pacific Hotel. However, when I contact Chris he tells me he is now unable to get July 3-17 for his summer holidays and says he'll ring me tonight. The boy's a failure.

At lunchtime I ring West Yorkshire bus service to make enquiries about the bus service from Kirby Malzeard to Leeds. It isn't as bad as all that and I'm cheered up somewhat by the timetable. Carole rings shortly afterwards and is full of cold. She tells me that she wept herself unconscious in bed last night over the incidents of the weekend and asks me whether I've forgiven her for acting ridiculously. I assure her that I still want to go out with her and arrange to see her at Maria's tonight. I don't think Mrs Mac will like visitors running all over the house at a time like this but Carole insists I go.

Home for tea at 5.45. Sue tells me that Agatha Christie died today. I don't hear anything about this on the news however, and no doubt I will have to wait for the morning papers to announce this sombre news. She was a brilliant writer, and I will always look upon her books with reverence and respect.

Go to Maria's at 8.30 and sit feeling quite ill. A sudden cold seems to have descended upon me. Maria is in high spirits and has taken her grandfather's death very philosophically. Her attitude is that he's in a better place now and he's the last person we should worry about.

John brings me home at 11pm. I've been sat with Carole all night. We didn't say much, but I suppose the trauma of the weekend is very much on our minds.

-==-

Sunday January 11, 1976

1st Sunday after Epiphany. Wake up at about 11.30 for a cooked breakfast with the family and Carole, who passed a peaceful few hours sleep on the lounge sofa.

At 12 o'clock we (David B, Peter, Carole and Maria included) set off for Kirby Malzeard and the Henry Jenkins Inn. I feel a bit wheezy sat in the back of Dad's car and have the windows well wound down thus to encourage the ice cold moorland air to blast against my sickly, hungover-ridden face. Arrive about an hour later and fall in love with the place immediately.

We all want Mum and Dad to get the pub with the exception of Sue and Peter, who keep insisting that it's too far away. We leave at 2.30 after having a stroll round the village and go on to Ripon and then home.

Maria went home to hear that her grandfather (Savage) died at four o'clock this afternoon. He's been in a coma for a few days and I'm sure that it's a blessing really. Nobody should have to suffer like that at 86.

Carole goes home at 7pm and I'm just about sick of our relationship. (Sentence deleted.)

Chris and Peter come at 8pm and we choose some holidays.Ibiza seems to be the likely spot and July 3-17 the dates. At 10 we go down to the Commercial with Dave B for a quick one, two or three.

Home at 11 to discuss the Kirby Malzeard move. Sue and Peter will just have to get used to the idea that they can't live in one anothers laps for the rest of their lives.

-==-

Saturday January 10, 1976

Lynn and I went into Guiseley at 3 o'clock or something like that because we were both sick and tired of waiting about for our so-called 'partners' to contact us. (Please remember that Miss Phillips is NOT on the phone).

David B comes looking for us in Guiseley and we come back for about 4 o'clock.

Carole storms in at about 4.30 and just sits herself down without uttering one word. Mum and Dad go out for a meal, and Lynn and David remain with the two of us. Even when we go down to the Hare and Hounds she says nothing, and it is embarrassing to say the least. We move on to a place in Bingley and she disappears after I bought a drink. Lynn and Dave say she's in the car and I go outside and tackle her. I tell her it's pointless our carrying on and finish with her. She begins to cry and tells me that David Baker told her last night that I didn't love her. I do not love her, but fail to see what that's got to do with DB!

We go on to Oakwood Hall where I tell her to stop being stupid and that I am still going out with her. (Don't ask me why I changed my mind because I couldn't possibly say why. Possibly the tears did it.) David B was horribly embarrassed by it all because he was the only other chap in the car.

We came back to our place at 2.30 and David must have been relieved to deposit us at Pine Tops. Carole and I come in, and Mum and Dad follow shortly afterwards. We talked for what seemed like hours (Mum & Dad went to bed at 3.30) and Carole and I talked until 5.30am. I was pissed and rolled around on the lounge carpet.

-==-

Friday January 9, 1976

Something's happened to Carole. Yesterday everything was loveliness and rosy, but today I detect a marked change in her attitude.

She went round to Maria's straight from work. I was summoned to Ridgeway at 8 o'clock and walked in to find a conference drawing to a close. The girls and Mr Macdonald had been nattering about something and Carole was exceptionally cold and disinterested.

We caught the bus to the Hare, and if David hadn't been in it would have been unbearable.

We moved on to the Black Bull in Otley and then called in at the Junction, which is up for sale and under Mum and Dad's scrutiny. The place is an absolute wreck but could be made nice if a couple of million quid was to be lavished upon it.

Carole was acting like a moron and when everyone asked her what was wrong she replied that nothing was wrong.

At 11pm David was feeling hungry and so we all went to Headingley for a bit of something to eat. Carole's silence continued, and I was getting sick of it.

We all came back for coffee and Carole, as you've probably gathered by now, was the typical little chatter-box and life and soul of the party. Dave B took her home at about 12.30 which left David, Dad and me talking about capital punishment and the rest of the current debate points until after 2am. When Dad went up to bed Dave sat for a while and said, quite seriously, that Papa is the greatest speaker he's ever heard. Coming from David that certainly is a great complement.

David left at 2.30 and we think we're going to Oakwood Hall tomorrow - that's if Carole will lower herself to mutter a 'yes' or a 'no'.

-==-