Market day

The alarm goes off at six thirty, I get up and make boiled eggs and soldiers for breakfast. Norman trots in around seven and I open him a tin and then let him out into the garden. It's cold and not yet dawn but looks like being a good day. I manage to fit in a shower and dress, before driving to Molescroft to get Leslie out of bed. He is in good form and eager to take back control of his life, I leave him listening to the news while I pop to Tesco and buy some groceries and a newspaper and am back within fifteen minutes. We make coffee, Leslie makes himself some muesli and I stay with him until I am sure he is OK. I agree to call in and see him again after mass tomorrow, his daughter is visiting this evening. Back home, I put on a load of white washing and then grab Norman and drive into Beverley. We walk to the Poppy Seed but no one is there. I rang Felicity at Ten but only got her answering machine. On our way through town, I find a deep pie dish in one of the charity shops and a brass standing lamp for the lounge in "Sellit and Soon" a selling agency behind Toll Gavel Methodist church. Back in Tickton I rinse the aubergine slices that I had salted last night and then set them to drain and dry. They will form the basis of a Parmagiana, later in the day. The sky has cleared and I peg out my white underwear, and then meditate for an hour. Later I construct the Parmagiana, after drying the aubergine on paper towels and frying them to a lovely golden brown. Norman demands his dinner, so I feed him, put on the oven, knock up a goat cheese salad, and then walk Norman down to the bridge while the Parmigiana bakes. On our way back we get caught in a shower, it is that kind of fine drizzle that can drench you in seconds, so we are really happy to get back indoors. I towel Normy dry, take the Parmagiana out of the oven and then eat my salad starter whilst it cools down. I eat it with a glass claret and then retire to the garden room to read. It is my brother Graham's sixtieth birthday and I can remember the day he was born as if it were yesterday, or at least one part of it. After all I was only just turned seven myself, and the big deal for my birthday, the week before on the seventh of October, was that I would soon be getting a baby brother or sister. The bit I can remember, is walking with my Grandma Oldroyd across the car park outside Mount Pleasant Rugby and Cricket Ground in the pouring rain. Car park is perhaps too grand an expression, a patch of waste ground is nearer the mark, anyway I can remember walking across this patch of ground in an autumn storm, there are huge puddles and the rain is driving into them sending ripples ricocheting across their surface. I am wearing a gabardine raincoat and a schoolboys peaked cap, my grandmother a topcoat and a headscarf. It is less than half a mile from our house in Beaumont Street to my Grandma's house in Talbot street, but I can remember we were very wet and that it was too fierce for her to talk. My next memory is being asked to look after my baby brother in my mothers bed whilst she went down to light the fire in our two up and one down little house. My mother was very clever, in a nice way, she convinced me that this little baby was mine rather than just hers and this preempted any sense of jealousy, although it didn't stop me blaming Graham when I damaged the paintwork with a pen knife a year later. Somehow my dad couldn't believe a fifteen month old baby could have been the culprit. I call him in Holland, where he lives and we chat for a while and I promise to try to fly over and visit him again before Xmas. To bed at ten.