Alan Russell

"Up and at the office both forenoon and afternoon, very long" Samuel Pepys 1st October 1664 I know how he felt as Man Servant and I sat down to prepare the diary.

To say it has been a bit of week so far would be a gross understatement. Last Thursday, 15th October, one of our horses (Benney caricatured in the header picture) came into the yard with a cut on one of his fetlocks and was lame. Then on Saturday Bryn came in with a fresh cut on one of his fetlocks and lame. We cleaned him up and kept him in overnight. By now Benney had been stable kept for three nights to give the wound a chance to heal. It was getting better. On Sunday morning we pulled Bryn out to be groomed. Poor old lad, he could only walk on three legs.

INTRODUCTION There were approximately 48,000 British women who fell in love with and married service men from around the world during and after World War II. All of them have their own deeply personal stories. Some were both happy and some tragic. None of those 48,000 stories could have been more deeply personal than the story of my own parents which, fortunately in my case, turned out very happy.

A most difficult and stressful month Thursday 9th July 2020 Man Servant made himself very busy in the garage this morning. There was much bumping, thumping and grunting as he moved things around trying to create some space and order. I was rather hoping he was arranging it so that the “red thing” could be put away at night rather than being left on the driveway.

Saturday 30th and Sunday 31st May 2020 Both days have been soporifically hot and so they passed in a blur under the cooling whir of a fan.

Thursday 14th May 2020 In my previous diary (Omar’s Diary to 13th May 2020) I bemoaned the fact that large corporations were quite listless in dealing with my correspondence.