October 27th 1982

The weather, yet again, was foul, but this was handy since it enabled us to embark on Phase One of Operation Clean-up.  I read the paper + wrote this diary while Val washed the vast majority of our clothes.  That took virtually the whole morning, + with the rain still coming down, we decided to treat ourselves to the pictures.  The only difficulty was in deciding what to go and see.  Eventually, rather against her better judgment, I persuaded Val to come + see “Rocky III”.  I thought it was by no means as good as its predecessors, but I still enjoyed it.  The fight scenes were well-done and exciting,  but the drama, or melodrama, of the other scenes was very stagey, and so weak.  And, as anticipated, Val didn’t enjoy it at all.  Tho’ she agreed that the guy playing Rocky’s opponent was superb.

When we came out of the cinema, the weather was just very pleasant… which shows what happens when we take ourselves out of circulation.  Spoke to Rich after dinner, since he thought it very unlikely that he’d be going out sailing this weekend, + since we didn’t want to be too much of a burden to Rory + Eva in any case, we decided to leave, + head up north on Friday.

In the evening, we all went out for a drink with John + Margaret, the couple we’d met at Rich’s welcome home party, who had invited us to go round for a meal.  2 other of Rich’s friends also came along, so we were quite a little crowd.  Everybody seemed to think the pub was quite nice, but by British standards it was cold, impersonal, + barren – more like a hotel bar.  Still, the evening was pleasant enough, without being anything very special.

Hm – sometimes I wonder if I ever read these entries after I wrote them. I certainly appear to miss the (many) times that I condemn myself out of my own mouth/pen. Operation Clean-up, for example, seems to have been conducted entirely by Val, while I read the paper, and then did some writing. And then I recount how I bullied Val into seeing a film she didn’t fancy.