Drought

In town in the afternoon, at the library. Then I bought a pair of trousers and a suit (£11.70) from Suits Me before coming home with Dad when he got off work at two. He’s still bitter about his dispute at work with a co-worker Frank over who has what weekend off and feels like the bosses always side with Frank. He’s thinking of quitting at Christmas.

At home as I poured over Peter Underwood’s The Ghosts of Borley. I realised how easy it is to be drawn into an obsessive state of mind with regards to this sort of thing. It would be easy to allow it to dominate your life and to become “a crank,” as Lee puts it. Dad, perhaps noticing my sudden interest, said “Don’t get too involved in this or it’ll send you crackers.”

He was joking, but a certain seriousness underpinned the remark. My sudden interest in this has come at an awkward time; I’ve still got stacks of work to do in the remaining five weeks of the vacation—my extended essay of five thousand words to finish, Hegel, Nietzsche and Faulkner to read (although I want to take the Williams Special Subject instead of the latter). I can’t seem to whip up any enthusiasm where University is concerned which, with Mum’s “anything less than a first will be considered a failure” still spinning in my head, is bad news.

The rain streamed down all day which is good news because today it was announced that Easterby has just 23% of its normal water supplies left and that this is dwindling at the rate of 2% a week. This drought is the worst in recorded history and even surpasses the near-legendary summer of ’76.

I’m uneasy again. It’s 1 a.m. and it’s a hot night—76° according to the thermometer on the landing. I’ve been waking up in the early hours of the morning again and resorting to switching on the light for peace of mind—which is really a very silly attitude.