Friday Jan 7th 2022.

I couldn't go on my walking for health yesterday as I had to sort dad out yet again, because he had red urine. Mum rang my landline as they had rung 111 and they said they would try to contact the nurse from 8 pm, but no one showed up.  I rang the Wilton District nurse four times and got the answering machine, the nurse did come in the afternoon.  They are very stretched because of the Omicron virus and no one was in the office to man the phone!

What is the point of telling us we can contact them anytime when all you get is the answering machine because no one is bloody there in the office!!

I'm not ready to lose dad yet, he sleeps all day in the chair and I know it winds mum up but I can't do anything.

Spoke to Aunt Joan, Elizabeth is in hospital and has been since Boxing day.  Liz had had breast cancer and they are doing tests on her because she's getting bloating.  Aunt Joan says the diagnosis isn't very good and made me promise not to tell mum or anyone.  I and Liz have known each other since kids, we've had our moments but she's still like a sister to me.  

Have started French Knitting with tapestry wool which seems to work, dunno what I'll do with it yet. 

I'm very proud to be part of a group called The Fisherton History Society, we used to meet at the Duke of York pub before the damned virus buggered it all up.  So much has changed in Salisbury, what memories do I have?

In Clifton Road where I used to live, there used to be an old builders yard behind our back garden in Gas Lane.  The building was of red brick and was once part of the old gasworks, there used to be an old black framed window facing into our back garden covered by grills and cobwebs.  I sometimes tried to peer through the frosted glass, but I never saw anything, there was also a circular window higher up the wall. 

I remember the workers leaving one sunny afternoon.  I was supposed to have been in bed, so it must have been summer or something. My bedroom faced the back garden and I often awoke to the sound of a wood drill or hammering, saw them one taking out roof frames on lorries.  

It's all sadly gone now as there are now houses where it used to be, but I have a photo somewhere of what it once looked like.

Even Daltons shed yard over the road is gone.  He owned two fierce Alsatians who sat in a cage and barked at everything, literally.  Mr Dalton didn't like me very much and snarled at everyone, who was fiercer? Him or his dogs?

I and dad used to kick a football about in the back garden until we got Jinky who used to keep running away with the ball!  Our neighbours were called the Hallett's, I think they must have been there since the middle of the war.  They had a tabby cat called Tom who hated me and I can't blame him, I was an awful child and I regret the way I was and there's not a day that goes by when I don't think about it.  he vanished after we got the dog.  I wish I could ask for Tom's forgiveness and say sorry for being a little horror.  

Other neighbours were Mrs Racey who gave me a doll for Christmas, some say she never married as she was stood up and I know how awful some men can be.  There was a lady who taught the piano and was one of mum's cousins.  

We moved to Bemerton heath in 1981 a year after gran died.  There used to be an ice cream van that used to come down Glyndebourne close hill, I remember Greensleeves being played. The parents stopped it coming in the end by complaining that their children got very upset when they couldn't have ice cream as they couldn't afford it.

The pub on the heath was called the Conquered Moon it opened on July 24th 1969.  There was a lot of trouble there and it eventually closed, houses now stand on where they used to be.  There used to be a swing outside where kids sat while the parents were boozing in the pub.  Hours of fun on that.  Not!