Sunday March 15, 1981

 _. 2nd Sunday in Lent

Woke up early with a crashing headache. Took a couple of asprin and climbed back into the pink bed. The room looks like a marshmallow, you know. We eventually surfaced at 12. I paid a visit to the corner shop to buy a loaf. Lunch turned out to be tinned spaghetti on toast. 

At 3 we drove to the Stonehouse Inn, where we had a short walk, and then went on to Otley. A neurotic sheep leapt out at us from a bush and attempted to gore the car. I took the wheel and bombed through suburbia like Carlos Reutemann at Brands Hatch.

Dinner with Ally [a mass of curls, and wearing new pink shoes] and Mum and Dad. Liver. A chilled lemon sweet, divine. Ally and Mama sat knitting afterwards. Watched Glenda Jackson playing Elizabeth I, on the BBC. It looked really dated. Yes, I know it's supposed to look Elizabethan. I didn't mean that. It's 10 years old.

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Saturday March 14, 1981

 _. We didn't get up until 10:30. Whilst Ally dressed I packed piles of sandwiches, mainly salad, in readiness for our excursion to York. We head out to the northern capital at about 12 and we spent the afternoon trailing around the shops looking at books, china, and lots of shoes. We bought Graham and Gill a decanter and six wine glasses from Habitat and gloated over the numerous things we'd love to buy but cannot afford. 

At 4:30 we drove, with our picnic, to a lay-by near Acaster Malbis, where we ate and drank something called Pony [it's like sherry]. Half way through an egg sandwich I looked to my left at a gnarled and ancient five barred gate. Hanging from the said gate were seven or eight used Durex, arrayed like trophies, left no doubt by some randy farm boy, following steamy sessions with a local barmaid. Ally howled with laughter.

We returned to Guiseley and sat until about 10. Ally is obsessed with knitting. By the look of things it's a theraputic pastime. Her face take on a certain serenity, a tranquil countenance, which I haven't detected before. Mum and Dad came in at about 8 and we ate by candlelight.

Later Ally and I went to Pudsey to see Jill and Tim [I didn't phone them until 9], and the four of us went to the White Cross in Pudsey, and then back to Wilsby. Jill and Tim collect the keys to their house in April, and want to marry in August or September. We sat drinking cloudy ale and apple wine until after 1. Back to Rue Club.

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Friday March 13, 1981

 _. Friday the Thirteenth. John and Maria were married in mist and gloom on this day five years ago. We sent cards of remembrance to Scotland.

Frantic day at the YP. _____. The chairman of United Newspapers, Lord Barnetson, has snuffed it at the age of 63. No doubt Gordon Linacre was on the early train to London to grab all he can. Mark my words, he'll soon be Lord Linacre of Bramhope. 

To Ally's at 6. Helped her prepare dinner for Mum & Dad who arrived at 7:30. Mum looked good in the chiffon dress she wore at Sue and Pete's wedding. There she was in her white fur coat peeping through the door. Ally says Dad becomes more quiet every time she sees him. He has never been what you might call a circus act, bounding with joy, but he was quiet and inobtrusive through the Queensland cocktail [avocado and crab], chicken sweet and sour, followed by meringues and strawberries. Scrumptious. They left at 12.

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