Saturday August 30, 1980

_. Breakfast with Mama and Papa and then I disappeared to Ally's, where I found her doing housework. Washing and cleaning like something possessed. That chap Grahame who wrote The Wind in the Willows would have found a suitable adjective to describe Ally's activities, but I fail to do. She asked me to join her, in this dubious spurt of energy, but I clung fiercely to the arms of my chair. After some slight persuasion she transformed from scullery wench to Italian countess, and we headed out in the dying Spitfire to the Bod.

We spent an hour at the Bod, shovelling coins, wildly, and with regularity, into the juke box.  Afterwards we visited the Citroen garage nearby and attempted to inspect a car. We left unsatisfied, after thumbing through 1968 editions of Leeds Topic. The garage proprietor simply vanished.

Back at Club St we found a bottle of David Greenwood's rhubarb wine. Ally concocted a spaghetti bolognese. I ventured into the garden and pulled weeds. Inside, Ally arranged a night out with Lynn and Dave.

Out at 8:30, drunk, and loudly conversing, and Lynn and Dave joined us in the Drop just as we were about to propose marriage in unison, but the words were put off until a later date. Lynn was rosy and well, but is sharp with me when my noisy banter embarrassed her. Bad of me, really. Drank until 11. Saw Walter, the greengrocer, with his mistress of long standing, or long laying. He informed Mrs Hanson, the landlady, that Lynn and I are children of the famous local police sleuth, Lawrence Rhodes. She was somewhat taken aback, and on composing herself reeled off the various incidents in her life where Papa had been a guiding light. Once, she told us through the bottom of a half pint glass, Dad had ejected her forcibly from a polling station after she had a disagreement with an election official.

Lynn and Dave went on to Burley-in-W and we went back to Bradford.

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