Nurturing Diana and catching up with the new IT minister appointments and enjoying a game of croquet with Dan and Debbie before their return to school the next day as the Docks Strike holds and the Miners talks drag on
An unsettled night with my periodic enquiries after Diana’s health actually adding to our disturbance! Then to wake early and I made the morning drinks and found all well. Daniel and Deborah laid the breakfast table and we all had a breakfast of toast and cereal. Deborah was taken to school, Joan arrived to do the housework and I went to the office and drafted a BMMG response to the Cabinet changes, and letters to the outgoing Kenneth Baker and incoming Minister. The first wished him well and thanked him for his past courtesies. The second welcomed Geoffrey Pattie’s arrival to the DTI as IT Minister and sought an early meeting. I called Tony Keston of the DTI and was not able to learn much new about the two Ministers as they were unknown to the staff as well.
I prepared a lunch of soup and bread and Daniel’s friend Garry stayed to have some as well. By the end of the afternoon I had finished my work, but had still the tariff duty submission to write, which was deferred until tomorrow. Diana was well enough to make our tea and I helped her by doing the washing up. Daniel, Debbie and I had a game of croquet afterwards – with Debbie using the hand mallet as a club! The kids to bed, as they were both due for school in the morning, and then a lazy evening recovering from the exertions of the day. Debbie and I had picked at least three dozen ripe pears from our espalier tree and we enjoyed the first two of them. News tonight of the coal talks struggling on. Dr Brian Richards, the Harley Street Doctor convicted of plotting the death in the US of his partner, was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment. In Ulster, two people are shot as Douglas Hurd flies into Belfast. The dock strike is holding with about half of the dockers out on strike.