Jess Yates

The cats woke me up by playing with the light flex in the bathroom. I’ve been having some disturbing and vivid dreams lately; yesterday morning I dreamed I was with the Tsarist Royal Family and I was murdered by Bolshevik Red Guards, fending off bayonet thrusts as I was stabbed in the ribs. . . . Today I dreamed Egley was being shelled: the whistle of shells, whole families cowering in the gutters, Mr. Tillotson’s roof destroyed. . . .

We visited Alverhouse and Carol bought books for her school and we wandered about the open air market. I bought A Saucerful of Secrets and we had drinks in a couple of pubs. In one, a Jess Yates style organist trundled out mindless ditties to the accompaniment of stentorian and tremulous voices: the dark, bluesmoke interior was crowded with greying heads. One old lady was helped from her chair in a drunken stupour (“she’s on angina tablets”). The heat was suffocating. We got back to the house late-afternoon.

Robert's now a vegetarian, and his interest in Buddhism continues (“Zen is selfish”). We spent the evening reading and listening to folk records.

As I write this I can hear the soft murmur of a cassette tape on Buddhism from Rob and Carol's bedroom.