Wednesday June 24, 1981

 _. Didn't see Ally. She is turning Ash Tree Cottage into Clarence House in readiness for the arrival of her parents.

Winston: blue eyes?

Dined with Mum and Dad. She made fine Yorkshire puddings and eulogised over my imminent passing. Dad was genuinely moved and blinked away tears. "We will miss you, Mike", said Mum very breezily, but I knew how she felt. Or do I? Twenty six years of love and devotion, care and attention, and in the blink of an eye your child has gone -- gone off with another to repeat the process all over again.

Anyway, enough of that. At the office my telephone trilled. It was a portrait painter, working on a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill, and was desperate for an accurate description of the colour of the great man's eyes. One would have thought that this might be an easy thing to pin down, but no. Nowhere does it say what hue twinkled in that Bulldog head. He did of course have sandy, dare I say ginger hair, before he lost it, and so would make a guess at a blue/grey shade.

-=-