Tuesday May 17, 1977

Feel grotty all day. Stomach ache mainly, and anorexia. All the same I forced down two sandwiches and a pea and ham soup - but could easily have done without. You don't want me collapsing at work do you?

Kathleen suggested that I ought to go home early, but like King Charles I (you know, him with the ginger hair and no head) I decided to be a martyr instead.

Carole: grandmother's accident

Carole rang at 3 and we decided to go out again on Thursday, again to Oakwood (Hall). I asked whether her mother had been knocked down, the victim of a road traffic accident and she laughed saying: "Oh no...
it 's my grandmother". It seems that the old lady fell in the path of a van belonging to the Gas Board and passed a night in Otley Hospital emerging with three stitches. Carole's attitude is quite frightening and she insists that the sight of ones beloved Grandmama disappearing beneath the wheels of a bright yellow NEGAS van isn't half as horrific as it sounds. Having no living grandmother myself I can never experience such a phenomenon.

Spent an evening in front of the television. The headlines on the 9 o'clock news was the royal visit to Scotland. It's the first of the 'Jubilee tours'. The BBC must have taken leave of their senses. A royal item to be the first item on the news? Surely the first such thing to occur since the abdication Edward VIII.

Took a bath after the royal spectacular and then returned to the drawing room to find Mama reclining on a sofa sipping delicately at her glass of Guinness. No other exercise whatsoever is allowed - Dr Jacques's orders.

Sit with a mug of cocoa and decide I feel much better. My bowels have improved tremendously since tea time. I cannot help thinking that Uncle Bert might have brought a virus with him from darkest Nottingham. Dearest Uncle will get his head kicked in if I find this to be so.

-=-