Monday August 4th

I got up late (about 11 a.m.) today and messed around, reading, talking and doing nothing in particular until Dad got up. The four of us had dinner (beans on toast) and Dad got ready for work about one o’clock. I wanted to go with him because I was going to buy the ‘Field Guide to Insects’ book (£5.95). But, when I came to assemble my money together I discovered I only had about £5.60 – I must’ve miscalculated the amount I had before I got this week’s pocket money.

I went into Easterby all the same, taking £5.00 with me. Dad told me to ring Peter Garth to find out if a meeting of the EAS was scheduled for tonight, and he would ring me to find out whether or not he should go to pick me up (if you see what I mean!).

I immediately went to Smith’s on Queensgate and gazed longingly at the “Field Guide,” which seems a superb book. I also looked at and bought a copy of “Jupiter’s Travels” about one bloke’s travels around the world on a motorbike. If I did that (or when I do that I should say) I won’t do it on a motorbike – too much to go wrong. Probably on a bicycle. The book, a paperback, cost me £1.50, which seems an average sort of price for paperbacks now. So today, with busfares, I spent £1.86; therefore I have about £3.74.

Mum was out at Moxthorpe when I got home and I spent my afternoon until teatime talking (or rather listening!) to N.P.’s endless sagas about Kenneth and Dorothy or Kenneth and Shirley.

At teatime the Echo and the News were full of tributes to the Queen Mother who is eighty today. The amount of feeling shown for her is enormous – if anyone ever attempted to make G.B. into a republic they’d have a revolution on their hands. It all gets a bit pathetic after so long. I rang P.G., no Society until the 19th.

In the evening, while Mum and Nanna P. watched “In This, Your Honour,” a tiresome birthday tribute to H.M.Q.E the Q.M., full of tinny regal music and fanfares, I played a record upstairs.

Later on, I was stood in the kitchen doorway gazing out into the dark garden when an enormous reddish-looking moth flew past me and into the light. It flew round and round the light shade and when it did eventually settle I identified it as some kind of Yellow Underwing type moth (Body length 23 mm, although its hindwings were orange-red).

I’m looking forward to next week when I’ll be able to buy the “Field Guide.”