Sunday August 9, 1981

 _. 8th Sunday after Trinity

Up at about 9:30. Graham phoned. We arranged to meet them at Wilsden at 12:30.

Meanwhile, Ally decided to wash a heap of shirts in the new machine and, to our horror, everything came out a dirty shade of blue. Her pretty yellow t-shirt was green, and my Hawaii-style shirt, bought in Ibiza, was unrecognisable. She sat very glumly as I explained how every novice housewife, entrusted with a new device for washing, makes the mistake of dyeing everything pea-green and Queen Mother powder-puff blue, and that it is all part of life's glorious tapesty, and a murky blue one at that. She didn't accept my findings, and I was almost the victim of a washing machine murder.

Dali: The Great Masturbator.

To Wilsden at 12:30. Graham, Gill, Richard, Eileen, Philip and Carol Middlebrook [sic], and later, the actor, Anthony [Browne]. Gill, always risque, brought up the subject of Salvador Dali and his phallic symbols. We all studied a photo in one of the Sunday papers entitled 'The Great Masturbator'. I would not want it on my chimney breast, although I do like Dali as a rule. Eileen is sweet. A true Londoner.

On to the Middlebrough/Middlebrooks where Anthony told us tales of a recent holiday with his aged parents in Paris. His mother, he says, vomitted off the top of the Eiffel Tower. 

Home at 4. Ally slept on top of the Union Jack cushion. Finished Agatha Christie's 'The Pale Horse'. Minced beef for Sunday dinner. Phoned Mum who was miserable. 'I thought you'd emigrated' she moaned. I only spoke to her on Thursday. I thought they'd be happy getting rid of me. Apparently not.

Watched a film based on the life of actor James Dean. Bed at 12.

-=-