North

We were in a really good mood on getting up and someone even commented on it; “. . . are you two singing because you’re glad to be going home . . .?” On the way to the station saw several shops worth investigating but we had no real time. We reached the station at about ten. It was good to be on the train going home, back to good old Easterby, back to Dad’s grumblings over the weather, to Robert and Carol, football, records, my books, back to 'it all.'

Total boredom on the train; I made an attempt to write what I felt and thought but the words wouldn’t come. . . . Something indefinably familiar crept into the landscape at Chesterfield or thereabouts, something which I identify as “The North." Whether it's the dull weather or just a combination of elements I don’t know but it was real, and somehow everything seemed smaller, cramped, more chaotic. . . . It was pouring with rain when we got off the train at Easterby. A superb welcome, and I couldn’t wait to get back to Egley Road but then, once I got here, it was all gone again. I had nothing to show for my anticipation.

I’ve enjoyed the holiday but at times my mind is still troubled by my ‘dilemma’. My scientifically rational side, so unimaginative in a way, makes me feel pretentious for being interested in art, etc. How do the two go together? Are they actually real? Jeremy rang, and instantly the attitude, the ‘decisions’ I've made over the last fortnight seem so impossible to maintain, so easily torn down.