Anyway, I mowed both lawns and weeded the bed alongside the Wall. I planted some of the things I bought at the market yesterday, but ran out of steam in the end. I don’t have a headache, but the rest of me is a bit tender. Mowing grass doesn’t sound that much, but I’ve been taking in parts of the rough grass too, that would be done by strimmer if I had one. Actually, friend Jamie has a mate with one he thinks might suit me, so he’s going to borrow it to let me have a go and, if I can manage the weight, I’ll buy my own. If I can’t, I’ll have to go for an electric one and rely on shears and the scythe when it’s too far from the house.
I thought it was going to rain, but it cleared and the sun came out so I put the washing out. It turned out to be quite windy at that point, so it was a bit of a battle with the laundry – but I overcame it, darlings. It all was successfully pegged out, though a bathmat made a break for freedom and some firm handling was required.
This evening, we went to the theatre/cinema – the showing of the live National Theatre play, This House, which is a dramatisation, from the point of view of the Whips’ Offices, of the hung Labour government of the mid- to late-seventies. It was very good and I recommend it, either at the theatre or as we saw it. It took a few minutes to adjust to the slight oddness of the artificial overplaying of live theatre, but on a cinema screen, but the play was good enough to become engrossing, though I thought the second half could maybe have been cut a bit – the uncertainty of each vote became a bit less interesting every time and if it had been speeded up a bit, the loss of the vote of confidence would have been more of a shock and less of an inevitability (though if you remember that dreadful limping government that got sod all done because it had to bargain with all the minority parties all the time, it was certainly inevitable when you lived through it). Still, that’s a quibble, and it’s certainly a link with the present situation, particularly when it came to the period of the Lib/Lab pact.
Tomorrow, off to Nadfas in Norwich. Can’t remember the subject of the lecture. Shall I look or shall I be surprised? – oh, go on, I’ll have a squint at the website. Music and Cultural Life in Shakespeare’s England. I’m happy with that.
Time to walk my dog, dear hearts. Goodnight.
Half 11 is a bit late for a dog walk? Have you installed street lighting?
That sounds a very interesting lecture. Could you please tell us about it in your next?
It’s a normal time for me, Rog, and I like the dark, though there are lights here and there.
Rightoh, Mike.
Oooh, that sounds like a fascinating lecture.
‘My’ dog. How lovely.