Bank Holiday Sunday.

Not much to report on my outing to the pub barbecue, I’m afraid. There was music playing – a deep, rich, male voice singing of cheating hearts and going to Texas. The intonation was perfect and it was loaded with mawkish sentimentality, but it was utterly devoid of soul. That’s Country and Western for you. If only he'd taken a shot at Benson, Arizona.

I talked to the landlady about southern Scotland where she comes from, and to somebody else about the gentrification of the countryside and the slow demise of rural communities. Another man told me that there’s been a legal ruling restricting the head on a glass of Guinness to 3/8”. I thought of expounding at length on the matter of rule-by-numbers, but decided it wasn’t the time or place. The woman with the crumpled face was there. She usually speaks to me, and waves when she's driving her car, but today she ignored me. I sensed it had something to do with her tight jeans and leather jacket, and wasn't entirely put out. Nobody I particularly wanted to see showed up.

Wolf was there, as expected, and came to say hello. And Cassie, the pub dog, put in an appearance. I haven’t seen her for some time and was concerned about her habit of lying on the road close to a bend. I feared she might have done so once too often, but she was in good health and uncharacteristically equable temperament. She said hello, too, but missed out on a meeting with Wolf who’d gone for a walk by then.

What surprised me was how many people called me by name as they were passing by. They were all people to whom I’ve never given my name, so I suppose somebody must have been talking about me. And we all know what Oscar Wilde said on that subject…

The only minor problem stemmed from drinking a pint of Marston’s Pedigree Ale on an empty stomach. I’d had no breakfast, you see, and I don’t cope well with alcohol at lunchtime anyway. I’m strictly a late night drinker. There was no staggering up the lane or anything, but it has taken me a good eight hours to get the mugginess out of my system.