For a change I can say that this was unequivocally a good month.

Naturally, A lot of this feeling is a result of the election at the start of the month and the pleasure of seeing people like Liz Truss and Jacob Rees-Mogg get dumped by their electorate. While still in the afterglow of that I went along to the local Labour AGM and then went along to a special council meeting.

Not having an endless stream of begging e-mails from Labour asking me to ‘just chip in’, and not having piles of leaflets turn up on the doorstep to be delivered within a few days also helped with the general feeling of contentment. And the weather has helped a lot too. It meant that I got out of the house a lot during July

I only went out in the car a couple of times; a trip to see our girl in Hampshire and a short shopping trip – as passenger both times – but finally started getting my money’s worth from the motorbike. There were some local trips to the Labour AGM and the chippy, but lots of little jaunts to record fairs or to various seaside towns. During the month I went to Worthing, Brighton, Eastbourne, Tunbridge Wells, Arundel, Steyning, and a midnight trip up to Molesey. I even had to fill up with petrol twice in the month – compared to twice in the previous 6 months.

With all those record fairs and towns stuffed with shops, I did get a bit carried away with buying vinyl, but did get some lovely records, mostly from the 1970s but one was as recent as 1990. Highlights were discovering the lovely Not Just a Record Shop in Eastbourne and Mrs. Canuticaq’s Emporium in Hove, and getting a copy of Next by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, a couple of Erasure LPs, and a copy of Kings of the Wild Frontier for a quid that plays brilliantly though it has a shoddy sleeve.

I even had a drink – my first since I was in Cologne in May – but it may have been a mistake. It was a hot day and I needed something cold and refreshing so had a fruit cider when we went out for lunch. I should have remembered that my body does not react well to drinking anything with meals, and especially not anything fizzy. It was a shame because the food was delicious, but I dozed off straight afterwards.

Yet again I did not really listen to a lot of new music as I was busy playing all the 70s stuff I had been picking up. While I was doing that I did still manage to get through 10 books, so well on course for reading more than 100 again this year.

I also watched a lot of TV for me. I binge-watched the new series of We Are Lady Parts and The Outlaws, and the first couple of episodes of the new McDonald & Dodds. OK so the last one might get classed as comfort viewing or cosy murder like Death in Paradise, but I like it even if the episodes are a bit on the long side and could maybe be split into two. Lady Parts was excellent though. Some absolutely brilliant comic acting that show. I really should be bigger than it is.

And of course there was sport. I watched a few of the Euro games and the Olympics opening ceremony. It was flawed, and went on for too long, but had some good ideas in it and was probably spoiled considerably by the weather but it was entertaining enough. I especially liked not having an hour or more of solid parade of the athletes. Splitting that into chunks was a good thing.

I even managed to cram a couple of films into the month, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed. First there was The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare which was like Inglorious Basterds crossed with John Wick. Based on a true story, but only very loosely, and with a body count to compare with Commando. The other film was Land of Bad. Again, plenty of violence and explosions. It is all set in the jungles of the Philippines (I think) and with the situation of a small squad in the jungle on a rescue mission I really was expecting the Predator to crop up.

I even managed to cling on to my Premium Bonds winning streak, snagging £100 this time.