12th after Trinity. Out of bed at midday for a cooked breakfast with the Mather family [except Donald, who is decorating]. Horror of Horrors! I smashed a rare Meissen plate when I dropped a half-ton butter dish onto it. Mrs M laughs it off but I feel terrible. I never break anything at home. I also accidentally knocked Peter's electric razor off a dresser, showering particles & bristles all over the kitchen.
Lynne and I then creep away to the Cayley Arms. Talk about things. We don't like Jane, and neither does Donald & Vera. I say how much I like her parents - which isn't crawling - but quite sincere. Only us in the pub, which isn't very nice, and so we go for a drive round for an hour or so. Bright sun. We laugh at the sight of a massive 18 stone woman astride a tiny, pathetic, crippled pony, which seems to be dying beneath the weight. Lynne wants to contact the NSPCC or something. Isn't that for cats?
Back to Ty-Onnen for hilarious lunch and then settle down to watch 'Cromwell' starring Richard Harris and with Alec Guinness as the martyred monarch. Retire to bed at midnight after cuccumber sandwiches and Tchaikovsky's 'Swan Lake' on the record player. Listening to Lynne and her father discussing work over supper I realise how terribly ambitious she is. I don't like ambition one bit. I tend to think people become eaten away by it and finish up like Hitler.
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