Test

Into Easterby again, second day in a row, and I intend going again tomorrow. I bought Huxley’s The Doors of Perception.

Before going to bed, Andrew, Dad and I listened to the exciting climax of the Test match in Melbourne on the radio. Australia’s last pair were in, needing 36 to tie and gain the Ashes. It looked like they were going to win when, three runs away from the target, Miller took a catch and England won.

Dad has been very ratchety the past few days, signs of the old bitterness creeping through. Today in particular there are flashes of his old, preretirement self, the self I thought he’d discarded. He delivered the usual vicious sermon about declining morals, permissiveness and Channel 4’s “pornography” (we can’t even get it on our TV!). He's so bitter and it's all so unnecessary, but then I suppose unemployment does get him down from time to time.

He's written fifteen hundred pages of his autobiography in just over seven weeks!