Tuesday April 19, 1983

 Rain all day and an unwelcome chill. Ally went off into the grey and we watched each other until the green  bus carried her away. I took up my paint brush and daubed with my picture but stopped after two hours to let the thing dry. Oils can be messy. I sat afterwards reading 'The Three Musketeers' and drinking coffee. I ironed some sheets and pulled the carcas of yesterday's bird to bits and made a chick soup. Ally was home at 5:20 looking damp and we went straight out and to the Richard Dunn Sports Centre where we swam around for 45 minutes. I think we did 20 lengths of the pool but it's an odd shape with an island in the centre from which noisy children insist on diving and distrupting our calm. We climbed out feeling suitably exercised. Acheing limbs. Didn't get home until 8. Both cold and hungry. Chicken and dumpling stew. Watched  the fabulous 'Minder' with Cole and Waterman - a genius combination. Took to our beds after 10. Lay with our books. I am gripped with the excitement of D'Artagnan's quest for Anne of Austria's diamonds. The book is something which all eleven year olds have mastered and I feel guilty reading it now at the onset of my fortieth decade.

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Monday April 18, 1983

 The alarm sounded off at 6:54 and was too loud and it threw Ally into an Adolf Hitler mood and she lay seething in bed yelling naughty words at her long suffering husband who was downstairs preparing her breakfast. She eventually came down at 7:30 feeling better but was still dangerous. I went to clamour for a Daily Telegraph and the newsagent reported to me that sales of the YP have 'gone stone dead'. I wonder why? Ally went off looking like something that would be safer in a zoo and I was left alone for the day.

At 9:45 I went to the employment exchange and queued with the unemployed Bradford lads. Does anybody actually work in Bradford? I was handed a slip of paper commanding me to report again on May 16. I asked no questions and took a brisk walk back to Lidget Green where I decided to take up my oil painting. I played with a still life which I started in September 1981, and made a start on a copy of 'the Oude Vinck Restaurant in Lynden' by Max Liebermann (1847-1935), the only German impressionist of note. I am obsessed with the colour green. When I next looked at the clock it was 3pm and I rushed around baking bread and trussing a chicken. Ally was in at 5 in a much better mood. I chastised her for going out in such a mood. We watched Coronation Street. Mike Baldwin wants to open a discotheque in Rosamund Street and the Barlows are campaigning to oppose the scheme. The Barlows are so boring and miserable. Mavis and Victor are back from camping in the Lake District. Saw the royal tour on the news. Bed at 9:20.

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Sunday April 17, 1983

 2nd Sunday after Easter

Sunshine. We stayed in bed until 11. I was first to regain consciousness and crept away to make lashings of tea. We sat amidst the quilt talking about last night. I looked in my '73 diary. I first met Marita on Aug 25, 1973 when we went to Cinderella's. I spent £2.50 - an enormous sum a decade ago. We howled with laughter. Ally wallowed in her tub and I played a Michael Jackson LP so loud that he his dulcet tones reach up to the bathroom. At 2 we went out for a bus and made several good connections and arrived in Guiseley at 2:30. It was a toss up to see who we might visit first and decided upon Lynn & David.  We went to Thorpefields but found them in the middle of a furious argument about visiting Audrey and a DIY centre. We took Frances into the sitting room whilst they yelled away at each other on the stairs. It, the argument, was resolved, and they decided it was too late to visit Audrey and so we all went into the garden and sat around the garden shed like gnomes. Lynn is a fresh air fiend. Sue, Pete and Christopher arrived and it became a real family pow wow. Christopher chased the terrified Frances around the garden pushing her into the vegetable patch and pulling her hair. He is a terror. I took numerous photographs of the clan at play. Katie was reclining in her pram surounded by flapping white nappies on the washing line. The pram like a yacht in full sail coming into harbour. Like a scene from the 'Onedin Line'  - but bigger. David is a serious little soul. He took up a spade to dig the garden and Lynn suggested I joined him which I did for five minutes. Poor etiquette. Asking a guest to help dig is surely not on? Sue and Pete left and we went insidfe to escape the chill. Watched news of the royal tour on TV and joined the Bakers for Cornish pasties and beans. Frances, a little love, sat in her high chair digging at the dry food. Katie wheezed on the floor. Lynn says the poor thing has had a constant cold since she was born. Later David disappeared upstairs to draw and we had a couple of drinks with Lynn before returning home at 8. I was in short sleeves and felt 'parky'. Back at Clube St before 9. Bed at 10. Lynn leads a lonely life with David, who is increasingly buried in work. He's such a quiet little person too.

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