Sunday February 25, 1979

_. Quinquagesima.

Continuing heat wave. Lawn cutting weather is just over the horizon and I can almost envisage the dancing daffodils & hear the conscientious bee as he dashes about his business, which is more than can be said for 15 million British workers including the civil service and that sainted profession, the refuse collectors, who have done sweet sod all since Christmas.

We can no longer see down the lane because the piles of festering rubbish are over twenty feet high. To make matters worse the stench is intolerable, and the little masked gent pulling the hand cart piled high with human remains crying: "bring out yer dead!" finds it impossible to get through the heaps of filth and effluence.  Otherwise, everything is rosy and going well on this fake Spring morn.

Did nothing today but watch TV and eat fruit. Sounds weird I know, but true. My reclusive lifestyle continues. I'm now on the path to a lifetime of celibacy and peace. Booze is definitely out and the joys of the female flesh are now a thing of the past. It's strange really because theses sorry symptoms are not the normal ones for those recuperating from pnuemocallaghanicosis. Those on the mend from 'Jim's disease' usually drink themselves into a coma and the majority of them are old regulars down at the clinic having treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

Watched Irene Dunne in a 1906 epic 'The White Cliffs of Dover' - nauseating. Mum made up her own dialogue as the film crackled along its weepy, tragic course. Later saw Shakespeare's 'Henry VIII' - which was good.

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Sunday September 10, 1978

Moon's first quarter 04:20

16th after Trinity

A day made very amusing my the presence of dear Auntie Eddy. We were all very much hungover at breakfast and Eddy (Jadwega, of course) brightened things up with her wonderful Polish banter. She told Susan that yesterday she had looked 'radiating' in her bridesmaid garb.

Alison was dreadfully pale, and John P said he was close to death. Lynn and Dave arrived at about 11 to say goodbye and Eddy almost had Dave upstairs for a massage but he fought her off successfully. Audrey Baker fell victim here and was taken upstairs for the full works. Eddy advised Henry on his vitamin B intake. John came in to bid them farewell and then off he went back to Maria and JPH and they left for Stranraer.

Richard & Mandy B arrived and took them off to East Midlands Airport and they flew to Ibiza at 3pm. Alison and John P went with them. Lunch with Mum, Dad, Jacq, Bert, Eddy and Reggie. We had fish and chips from Harry Ramsden's, but first we collected all the floral displays from St Paul's church. The old hag of a caretaker went on and on about the mess Delia had made on Friday.

After lunch we fell into the lounge. It's a tremendous anti~climax. Bert, Eddy and Reggie went to Leeds at 5pm for the coach home to Nottingham and we watched TV. Keith Michell playng Henry VIII in the 1972 film.

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Wednesday August 16, 1978

Dave had kipped down on my bedroom floor and so he took me into Leeds with him at 8:30 this morning. He looked very pale after last night's booze. He told me he's sick to death of Thomson, Spencer & Partners, and is completely at a loose end. Poor sod ~ he does get very low at times. He even said, as we sped along, how he can understand why people take to drugs.

Sarah wasn't in a much better mood today. ___________. She could have me any time she wished, but she never really knows just who or what she really wants.

Tonight Dad, Jim and I continued the renovation of 7 Lawn Road. It is very good of Jim to lend his services. He kept asking for jobs to do and I was ordering him about. Jim looks and acts like an old retainer. The sight of him doffing his cap to a passing squire wouldn't be out of place at all. He also resembles King Henry VIII's ill~fated chancellor, Thomas Cromwell. A nice guy though.

At 10:30 Dad and I went to the fish and chip shop and bought a large selection of fried foods for the unsuspecting people at home.

Laurence Olivier and Felix Aylmer are on TV in a 1943 drama. A good piece of British war~time propaganda. To bed too tired even for Lady Chatterley's demands upon me.

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Sunday February 26, 1978

3rd Sunday in Lent.

Edith and Ernest are going to live near their son, Kenneth in Devon. Isn't this awful? My best adoptive grandparents are deserting me for clotted cream, and all that. Mum immediately blanks out the sad details but says: "wouldn't it be nice to buy number 54?" I agree. The Blackwells live in a detached house which must be worth £22,000 and within months (after considerable alteration) could be worth as much as £30,000. Dad, as usual, is pessimistic and sceptical.

Margaret: 'ugly'

Ernest, looking at our Sunday Mirror, says Princess Margaret is 'ugly' and 'looks 60'. Never! Just because the dear thing's gone off to Mustique again (yesterday) with Mr Llewellyn Ernest is following the establishment tradition of 'blackening' her name. She is, and no doubt always will be, a very attractive woman, and her sexual appetite, whether it is for Welsh pop singing gentry or not, should be of no concern to peasants such as us. As long as HRH continues to dish out the honorary degrees, snip the ribbons, and make the speeches then she is fulfilling her intended role.

I did nothing all day but eat and roll around in the lounge. At 9 I went with Mum and Dad to Edith & Ernest's where we watched 'Anne of a Thousand Days' ~ a story very roughly based on Anne's Boleyn's brief association with King Henry VIII. Richard Burton made a very unimpressive monarch.

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Thursday January 17, 1974

A very satisfactory day. Spend all morning busily filing and by 12.0 am completely finished. Sarah is also on half day. Raining again, but I won't bang on about the weather - thereby avoiding depression among my multitude of readers.

A poor demented MP is now saying that we are all using too much electricity for domestic purposes. We all ought to be cleaning our teeth without the bathroom light on, and sitting around in a darkened lounge staring at a blank tv screen, perhaps making models out of old, and rare, toilet rolls. Anyway, we are all frantic with the speculation that Mr Heath will have his election before February 7. The Tories are 2 points ahead of everyone in the last Gallup poll - and the Tory back-benchers are urging Uncle Ted to dissolve. Not personally of course, but Parliament that is. He'll have to go see the Queen of course.

At 12.0 I went to have my hair cut. Emerging 60 minutes later looking somewhat replenished - my hair shorter - surprise Mum and Dad with my new image. Mum and Dad go to Morrison's and I watched a good film on the BBC. Settled down in front of the tv - do not intend going out tonight. See 'Tomorrow's World' and 'Top of the Pops'.

Retired to bed early. Read a good book on the life of Sir Thomas More, a victim of King Henry VIII - not a biography though.

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