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1007259774
February 1953
Friday 13
Lovely day - warmish. I went to butcher in morning & wrote a few more letters. Long call from dear Pixie saying she had sent the mss to Frank Eyre registered postage 3/9. In afternoon I went to G.P.O. & got man to give me p. & par of regulations against the lout in the P.O. here. Left packet at A&Rs for Pixie. & went to Jean F's flat to see K.S.P. Lovely meal & then we - K. & J. - went to New Theatre to see Gogol's Inspector General & talked to the cast behind the scenes. Met a Curtain who said he acted Mr Friend in "Call up y[ou]r Ghosts" in Melb. Home by 1 a.m. Also saw M. Sawtell for a chat about B. Miller & Paid Radio Licence at G.P.O.
1007259775
February 1953
Saturday 14
Cold grey day after lunch. Took Mrs A. to vote. Met the Watsons. Shopped at butcher's etc on way home. I was feeling very slack. Cut down the wistaria again & a few such chores. Wrote letters but was really too fatigued for it. Read Edith McKay's "The House of Winston Blaker" a lively enough yarn, free from thought & completely banal. utterly mundane.
1007259776
February 1953
Sunday 15
Coolish day. Frank Ryland called in morning with nephew & took up an hour. Glen telephoned for ¾ hr. exactly in middle of my dinner. I telephoned Les Rees in early evening for 35 min. so went my day. L.R. is suffocatingly dead & alive. Prepared for major laundry Tomorrow if it is fine. Ran telephone message for Mrs A.
1007259777
February 1953
Monday 16
Poured during night. cold next day everything sopping, no hope of beginning laundry. Mrs Bennetts came & paid my Gas Bill for me. She brought biscuits. I gave her tomatoes. Cleared out a lot of papers & a few more letters. Florrie telephoned and asked me for the week end. K.S.P. & Jean F. both telephoned me K.s time of departure tomorrow night.
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(cont. from opp. p.) up groceries from Dodds, had my evening meal & to bed after 10.
1007259778
February 1953
Tuesday 17
Still raining. Muggy showery day. I pottered ineffectually and at 5 shopped at Dodds & got him to keep it for me. Went to Sydney to post books & to newsreel where a drunk vomited all over me the pink evil-smelling mess so familiar. I tried to clean myself up with paper. A woman & man helped slightly - but I was wet through & the sickening stench made me sick. Had to go to Central to see K.SP. off to Melbourne also present Jean F. & Enid D. I got home after 9. picked [continued at bottom of 16 Feb page]