A day working outside on my Riverside gardens tending my nest boxes, doves and ducks whilst the first cruiser of the season passes by as Thatcher upsets the Libyan releases of hostages and 69 USAF airmen are injured in the Athens bomb
A better lay in this morning and I spurred Diana to make the morning tea when I woke at 7.45am. She had already been up in the middle of the night to feed the baby. Breakfast of fried egg, bacon and bread and then up to read The Sunday Times and the Investors Chronicle. Up eventually at 10.45am and until 11.10am washing, shaving and dressing. Out to the doves and an hour or so trying to get them to feed from a bird table. Eventually, I enlarged it with a plywood cap and got them to venture down. I managed this by catching the grizzle hen in the end, and using her as a decoy on the table. Then to the ducks and, by 11.30am, a total of 6 eggs – the best so far this season. A long process then of looking at the nest boxes as I replaced the plywood robin box on the old plot with a pottery model, took down the large box from near the dovecote and cleaned out the tit box on the large oak tree, resting it higher and out of the water streams on the trunk.
Lunch of chicken with cheese cake to follow and then out to finish my chores and bring some new logs in from last week’s felling. The ducks in for the night and then in myself to light a fine log fire and have tea of jam scones and ice cream to follow. Early evening writing and watching television of holidays, money and The Sword Divided, which is the best. Today a cruiser passed by as the first one to venture out and also a two-man canoe passes by and so, perhaps, spring not far away. News tonight of the progress towards releasing the four British businessman hostages in Libya. Terrance Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s special envoy, is being congratulated and appreciated for his efforts. But the latest news is that the Libyan’s have reacted unfavourably to Thatcher unveiling the WPC Fletcher memorial and another week’s delay is foreseen. The coal board has announced that Kirkcaldy colliery in Fife will close with the loss of 500 jobs following an ultimatum last week, which the NUM had described as strike-breaking propaganda. Minister Douglas Hurd has criticised a potential meeting between the IRA and SDLP. 69 American airmen have been injured by a terrorist bomb in Athens. The weather outlook is for a drop in temperature, with wintry showers to follow.