Well at last - Part two

Way back in 1984 I bought a book ‘The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13¾’ It was the ‘Harry Potter’ of its day and simply one of those books that you had to have. I bought my hardback copy for the princely sum of £5.50 and put it on my bookshelf to read whilst I was on holiday.

The holidays came and went and it stayed on the shelf – a year or so later it went into the top of the wardrobe when I decorated the bedroom and it didn’t get touched again until I moved house in 1998. It was safely packed in a box, transported from South Harrow to Watford and promptly placed in the top of another wardrobe.

In March this year I decided to rent out my front bedroom and as a consequence, had to clear out all the boxes that had been in the top of the wardrobe untouched since the day I moved in.

Its amazing all the stuff that I’d crammed into those boxes – old birthday, Christmas and Valentine cards - ok, not so many of those :o(, editions of newspapers from when we went to war over the Falklands, old C90 cassettes of the chart show illegally taped from Radio 1 on a Sunday afternoon, a bag full of sugar sachets (strange), a 28 year past its sell by date sachet of drinking chocolate (stranger still) and loads of other stuff too personal or embarrassing to list here.

Needless to say that whilst I was going through the boxes, I found my copy of Adrian Mole, still in the original W.H.Smith bag with the receipt in the front – only the yellowing of the pages a clue as to how long it had been hidden in the box.

So today, twenty three years, two months and eleven days after buying it, I finally finished reading The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole – now quite a lot older than thirteen and three quarters!

And I never did watch the series on the telly, so I didn’t know the ending – not that it really had an ending anyway. The actor who played Adrian Mole is now a nurse working somewhere in Leicestershire apparently – so much for his 15 minutes of fame!

Quick update on the railway sleepers – I took advantage of the sunshine last night and managed to treat two and a half of the six foot ones before running out of preservative. The small ones are nearly dry (as long as you don’t rub them too hard) – I did check on the Cuprinol site and they said it can dry in up to 7 days depending on weather conditions, typical!
And my special fixing bolts are waiting for me at City Link in Hemel Hempstead so I’ve got to head up there this evening to collect them – rush hour on the M1, oh joy!