Five-Year Diary: Friday, 5th March 1976
A boy in the dorm has taken to complaining about the snoring. Not just mentioning it, but going on about it as if we are all personally responsible. This morning it transpires that someone has hidden his earplugs. That only makes him worse. He stands there in his pjs, accusing the dorm: at large, as if we are a jury who have already found him guilty of insomnia.
I can’t find my gym shoes. Typical. I turn out my locker, look under the bed, inside my trunk. Nothing. In the end I take my fell shoes to P.E., which is obviously the wrong decision. The master takes one look at them and tells me to get out of the gym. I tramp back across to the House, then to the changing rooms, hunting everywhere like a fool. Still no sign. Someone has them; this happens.
After lunch I am meant to change for swimming, but I can’t be bothered. Instead I drift back into the gym and muck about, half-heartedly climbing ropes and doing pull ups and avoiding anyone who might ask why I’m not at the pool.
Break is better: a Milky Way and a coffee. That feels like civilisation restored.
Geography passes without incident.
A minor triumph: a boy repays me the 25p I’d lent him, which I had half assumed I’d never see again. I also buy those little hole reinforcers for my file paper. There is something pleasing about sticking them on neatly, as if order might spread.
Latin is the Battle of Cannae — slaughter and encirclement. Rather more decisive than my day. Stories are so much more interesting than grammar.
Lunch, then band practice. We hack our way through the 1812 Overture, all enthusiasm and very little subtlety.
Physics test comes back: dreadful. I must have misunderstood half of it.
To cap it off, I accidentally took someone’s Chemistry book.
Back to the piano in the evening. Grade IV is the plan.
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