At Ham house the night before last for a charity reception. Clarissa Dickson-Wright the TV cook was there and gave a talk - quite funny on the subject of mens' legs - her basic thesis was the hairier the better - but rude to the gateman when he told her party where they should park their car. She of course now does duty for both fat ladies. I have seen her once before - it was outside Barts hospital when she gave me a shy smile which remained with me the rest of the day and saw me through an unpleasant invasive medical procedure. The house is Jacobean and is supposed to have a ghost. Rather eccentric I thought with all those busts of now unknown worthies but it was no doubt intended to be enlightning which is laudable.The police turned up  just before midnight - they were faffing around with an infra red camera and had spotted someone moving around in the garden (not surprisingly) and had come to investigate. I found the lavender garden with its conical fir trees and geometric lay out to my taste in its oddness. Manchester United were playing Chelsea in Moscow so that lightened the evening somewhat particularly since I favoured Manchester United and was happy to see the blues ultimately stuffed. Got home at 2am.  

Yesterday evening I went to Salisbury races. Enjoyed the racing and got home at 23.30. Had a bit of luck in the 6th race when I decided to back no 6 simply because it was in the 6th race. It won at 18/1. I thought I saw Lester Piggot but everyone told me I was wrong. Lester if you were there please let me know as there's a small amount of money on it. I remember a young feller on one of my previous visits to Salisbury races. He only bet on greys. An unsound strategy I would have thought but nevertheless he was a head of the game when I spoke to him about mid way through the afternoon. Unfortunately I forgot to check later on how he had done on the day. There was some trouble between local football supporters that day at the Paddock bar but it wasn't noteworthy and consisted mainly of name calling of the level of  "You're a muppet!" etc. This fashion for renaming Rugby clubs which I deplore got me thinking that following the example of the Warrington Wolves etc a good name for Leicester Rugby Club would be the Leicester Piggots? I have written to them to suggest it but haven't had a reply. There was one feller at the races who shuffled  around  looking permanently surprised - I marked him down as an empoverished gambler but HIS horse won its race and  I was suitably contrite and determined never to judge people on their appearance again. Someone again set fire to the cigarette bin which made a horrible stink. We battled like mad to splash water through the tiny holes in the side of the bin and eventually succeed in putting it out.
 

Spring Bank Holiday A friend of mine ricked his back and took himself off to St Thomas's hospital. He waited three hours to be told by a fat nurse that he was obese and that he should take painkillers. He was visibly traumatised by the waste of time and being called obese and fretted for the whole of the rest of the day. Ah me.
 

Rained all today. I was walking over Westminster bridge with the rain gushing down my neck when for no particular reason I thought of Wordsworth's poem about the same (bridge not neck). If someone resurrected him and gave him a pencil I wonder if he would still be so lyrical about it? Someone told me that his wife wrote his best lines and come to think of it there is a difference in quality between "I wandered...etc" and "For oft when on.." Not that I know a damn thing about poetry.
 

I was appalled to hear about the old lady who was threatened with the red hot boot by her local council for sticking an ad on a lamppost about a lost cat. Who are these ghastly fiends who terrorise old ladies? I intend to log further examples for my cheese pot of the week feature.

As mentioned above the rain was pouring down my collar as I came over the bridge. The trouble is my wife buys me shirts with a collar one or two sizes too big, reasoning I gather, that I am likely to get bigger before I get smaller.The result is of course that arctic gales and monsoons always head straight for my neck. I have tried protesting but it falls on deaf ears.

I heard of an appalling example of bad form from my old cobber George Atkins the other night. Apparently a church organisation refused to lend their cross - made of a bit of 4 by 2 Ikea pine to a visiting evangelical church group. The thing was standing in the corner of the hall crying out for use. But no. Also you are supposed to pay fifty pee for a pee on their premises unless you have been topped up in their restaurant first.
 

Poor old Henry.He was sitting in the "Nugget" dozing the other night when he woke up suddenly and yelped out "Three times!" Nobody could make out what it was all about and Henry quickly clammed up. I'm not sure it would benefit anyone to sort that one out.

Have you noticed that there appears to be a world artichoke seed shortage? I've been to BandQ and the big garden centres without a whiff of artichoke seeds anywhere. I mentioned it to Harriet this morning over the fence as I was bringing in my semi skinned (damn, is it skinned or skimmed I can't remember- the mind is definitely going) and of course she immediately whips out a seed catalogue from the recesses stuffed with artichokes and peppers etc. One begins to feel unnecessary.
 

Retirement has its positive side but on the negative is the fact that the days roll by unnoticed or is it just me?  You have just put away the plastic trumpet you got for Christmas and blow me its the middle of May and the blossom is already past its best. It makes me shudder.

The wife is dragging me off to Sainsbury so I shall have to lay the quill aside for an hour or two. Just when the juices were beginning to flow. I wonder if Dostoevsky had the same difficulty when he was writing War and Peace? Was he dragged off by the collar to the local rynok or was he made of the more stern stuff? What might have been. Ah me.
 

Tuesday 27 May Ronnie told me about a rum do at the supermarket the other day. It seems an old feller died in the cheese department. He had what the doctors call "instant rigor mortis" and remained standing up right propped on his stick .Noone noticed he was dead until a woman who wanted a couple of ounces of gorgonzola happened to nudge him with her trolley and he fell over. Terrible business really but I expect the old boy would have appreciated the lighter side of it - particularly the cheese department bit.
 

I've made an appointment to see the doctor about my ears. There's some days I can't heard a damn thing,  People seem to whisper at me all the time . My grandfather had the same thing and also got no sympathy. Granny used to say "There's none so deef as them as will not hear." I wonder if its inherited wax?

That reminds me I didn't tell you about when I did my duty at the polling station  on the 1st May. You remember it was the Mayoral election. There was only me and a couple of tories there, the female with the dreaded blue rinse and the male of the species with the glazed left eye behind a monocle. Give them their due though - the Labour lot didn't bother sending anyone. I decided to get chummy with the female to pass the time - which was a mistake - she started babbling on about the housing estates that were springing up all over the place and how the place was full of low paid workers. It was all too much for her and that was why she was doing her bit. Then Alistair Darling walked in and the tory asked him for his polling number. Darling looked aghast, ignored him and walked out eyebrows quivering. And so to the spare room.

I haven't been able to lift the quill for a day or two owing to the fact that my finger swelled up and looks like a German sausage. I'd been patting a neighbour's cat and generally saying sympathetic things to it when the wretched thing upped and scratched me on the said finger.  Fearing hydrophobia I went to see the doc who prescribed jabs etc and advised my wife to call immediately if I showed signs of foaming. Such is life. Ive never been interested particularly in Television competitons but I did enjoy the British Cooking competition thinking that there might be some hints on doing a good toad in the hole or a tasty spotted dick which I could pass onto the wife. It raised more questions than it settled for me. I got to wondering why beans for example have to be soaked overnight. I mean why not during the day or at some intermediate time?  Is there some special quality of night which makes nocturnal soaking vital - or have I missed something? I chanced to mention it to the wife who began reaching for the phone....
 

At Goodwood races and saw an old favourite of mine Diana Rigg. She was in the Avengers when I was but a young shaver and was in the habit of throwing grown men about the place. Still  looking as young as ever though she must be over a hundred by now? The next day I fell into conversation with a moslem bloke on the number 57 en route to Kingston.  He asked me why we in Britain like dogs as it seems odd to him. I couldn't think of a sensible thing to say and so mumbled something about dogs being the symbol for us of faithfullness, you know fido and all that but I was conscious that it didn't really answer his question. I mentioned to Frank that I was keeping a blog and after explaining to him what a blog was he remarked that in a thousand years or so my blog might be an important source of knowledge about the twenty first century. That being so I shall certainly try to keep it up.

Saturday 31st May I found myself listening into someone else's conversation at the coffee house today where I'd repaired to think about the spare bedroom, use of.  It was about this fellow who maimed himself on the dance floor. Apparently his achilles heel snapped as he was stretching out a leg. He is likely to be off the night shift for nine weeks so the old girl said. It reminded me of my dancing days long since passed into legend. I was in the habit of dancing without moving my feet something which once spotted didn't go down well with the female of the species I was hoofing with at the time. Thinking back on it now it probably shows lack of effort and commitment.

I've been wanting to set  up my model railway in the house for sometime and have some big ideas. I had my eye on the spare bedroom as a possible location for railway HQ and had begun quietly moving in my books on egg collecting and my rosewood walking sticks as sort of territorial scent markers - but a day or two back I noticed a counter move. The wife's sewing machine has appeared in the room and was occupying centre ground. I sensed impending failure. I tried a countermove and hinted at building a large shed at the bottom of the garden. Funnily enough this idea didn't fall on stoney ground and I sensed a change in fortune for the railway brigade. The shed is actually underway as I write and waiting in the wings is a small camping type cooker which the wife actually bought for me to use in the shed so as to avoid the walk from shed to house. And this morning a camping bed turned up - an early birthday present from the wife - from Penrose Camping Suppliers by urgent courier. All in all I sense a mighty victory. I expect blasting to commence within the next week and track laying shortly thereafter. 

Back at the doctors - the third time in as many weeks. Slight dizzyness when I raise my arms. The doc suggested not raising my arms which didn't go down too well. However he did send me off to the specialist to have my moles examined. All clear I'm glad to report though the one on my inner thigh I confess remains unexamined. Frank told me a terrible joke: What do Germans transport young calves in? A vealbarrow. Frank works for the Council as a road sweeper. There are new rules about smoking which affect him: he is not allowed to smoke within so many feet of his barrow and he has to remove his council coat when lighting up. Shades of the old fascisti. He tells me that autumn is his worst time - leaves everywhere and cover sparse.

I stand in the dunce's corner this morning. Pete Postlethwaite has written to say that Dostoevsky didnt write War and Peace. I checked with the blokes down at the Railway Tavern last night over chicken in the basket and they all reckon it was Brian Forbes. Apologies Brian!

Into June now and the rains are upon us. My water barrel is full and ready for any drought that might hit the country. Just before the rains started I took the opportunity of spraying the bindweed and buttercups which come through from next door in great legions driving everything before them, with a systemic weedkiller; unfortunately it seems to have affected the wife's much loved vigela bush which is shedding flowers by the bushel and looking quite browned off. I fear the worst and shall have to keep a low profile for the ad interim. I'm hoping to find a scapegoat in the slugs, snails etc which sally forth in great herds each evening by the light of the moon eating everything in sight.