Jan 25th

11 months to Christmas. The speed at which our lives are flying by is staggering, and frankly depressing. Only 1 lesson today. It's at 8:30 but I don't manage to find J until 8:45. A really nice. outgoing lad. He's 25, works for Citylink, and drives their vans around the yard, yet he has no confidence in his own driving. Strange.
The rest of the day is a sorry tale of netperving driven on by an intoxicating mix of carnal longing and apathy. Nothing gets done (nothing ever does!)
In the evening it's off for a ruby with B&N. A very enjoyable eveing. I relate the story of N at the driving test centre. Bob had a test to day and can solve the mystery.
Apparently N & the pupil were driving past Cressex school when a fully grown house brick came flying over the wall and collided with the car windscreen. Test abandoned, N walks home and is rescued by the I car. Bunch of bastards! Hope to hell E gets to HG school cos she sure as hell ain't going there.
Good meal, finished with Sanbuccas which makes a nice change. H arrives as my chauffeuse and I am sufficiently bloated and half pissed to see me going almost straight to bed. First though, E has stayed up (against orders) and is watching Mary Poppins for the zilllionth time. To think I saw that film when it came out in 1964, loved it, but never got the chance to see it again until 1984, when I caught it in Spanish (or perhaps Catalan, I really have no idea) in Barcelona. Now available on demand.
The scmalzy bit where Bert delivers his cheeky corknee homily to George hits home harder every time I hear it, with our youngest baby now heading uncontrollably towards her last term at junior school and the harsh, less carefree world of adulthoood.

You're a man of 'igh position
Esteemed by your peers
And when your little tykes are cryin'
You 'aven't time to dry their tears
And see them grateful little facesSmilin' up at you
Because their dad, 'e always knows
Just what to do


"You've got to grind, grind, grind, at that grindstone
Though childhood slips like sand through a sieve
And all too soon they've up and grown
And then they've flown
And it's too late for you to give.


My eyes are full of tears as I kiss her gently on the forehead, another day of her childhood iredeemably consigned to the world of memories.