Sunday January 22, 1984

 3rd Sunday after Epiphany

5, Club Street, Lidget Green, Bradford

Baby slept until 6am which is amazing. Ally however woke at three and then again at 5 to listen for him. I went down in the dark to make pots of tea to find a thick carpet of snow outside. Cemetery Road was covered and a deathly silence hung over Lidget Green. It looked like the Brenner Pass. Samuel has been home for a whole week. He was fed and then slept and we went back to bed until 10am. He is such an amiable baby, and not in the least miserable. Slouched around half dressed until noon. Fried eggs and bacon and sat at the dining table watching the boys from the corner shop building a snow Yeti. A nurse appeared at 1:30 as Beethoven was belting out. Evidently, if you play Ludwig's tunes to a new baby they develop into mathematicians, according to the Americans anyway. She, the nurse, gave Ally the all clear and disappeared in her massive wellies into the white distance. We watched the second version of 'The 39 Steps'. Hopeless. I always think of Kenneth More as Sir Douglas Bader and expect his legs to fall off any minute. The heavy snow today deterred family visitors. We were pleased at this. Washed twelve nappies and changed Samuel numerous times. Sludgy yellow to green nappies. Ally had a nap after 6. Dined on roast chicken, brocolli, potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, &c. Saw the end of The Thorn Birds. The old cardinal snuffed it. The final straw was the Jimmy Young TV show where Greenham Common women heckled Lady Olga Maitland. ______. I would put the lot of them in Holloway and let them rot.  To bed at 11:30. Samuel did not stir and we drifted off into the grey oblivion.

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