Everest

It was extremely cold this morning, everything frozen, the ground still white and the paths slippery with snow. By the time I reached school my ears ached. The sky was perfectly clear all day but the sun scarcely crept above the horizon. It began to get dark about three.

Claire was in when I got there. She was free third lesson and we sat together but I hated her obvious lack of interest. She’s as inaccessible as Mt. Everest. We talked about the desirability of money, and I said (probably just for effect) that I didn’t want any. . . . Jeremy was again in fine form, Laura nice and friendly. Everything else the usual crap. School is so strange at the moment; all play and no work.

I went home in the afternoon and Dad gave me a lift into Easterby on his way to work. I took £16 and wandered around looking for Christmas presents. I got Mum a book she’s asked for, Steinbeck’s East Of Eden, and I bought Dad a framed photo’ of Lloyd Street from 1903. At the library I bought myself a 1963 first edition hardback of Oscar Handlin’s The American People.

I got home at three-thirty and after boringly familiar Art, I did absolutely nothing but stagnate.