Some early direction of Pete, my gardener, on Hayling View path design and then a milder but showery day working on smoke detectors and alarms as Norma did jigsaws with Debbie before I took her for her first riding lesson in Offord. Britain and the US are suffering the consequences of the raid on Libya with murderous reprisals and a European Parliament resolution condemning it as a flagrant violation of International Law
A restless night, as I was both a little too warm and rather unsettled by Della and her bad cough. In the end, Di tended her and I slept better. Showered, shaved, and dressed for breakfast and then out smartly to catch the gardener by surprise just after 8.00am. He was not used to this and I caught him sitting and drinking tea. I got him to help me survey the site of the workshop, and then carry numerous paving stones to mark out the line of the new footpath. I took my time, but poor Pete’s lung troubles, exacerbated by his continued smoking in the face of all advice, left him quite breathless all the same. Still, we got the work back on an even keel (as it was in danger of losing direction) and Pete can now carry on at his own pace, without aid.
Coffee and then I tackled the smoke detectors and, after receiving a new adaptor from C-TEC, repaired the other two adaptors of an assembly fault, and then connected all three to the main system. Now, any one detecting a fire energises the central fire alarms. Lunch with Di, Dan and Di’s Mum and then time passed to tea break before the smoke detector job was finished. Debbie came home from school, did a jigsaw with Grandma, and then I took her for her riding lesson at Offord. She was very brave, walking the black pony, Emma, stopping, starting, turning and exercises, but she was not keen on the bumping of trotting. Another lesson for next week booked and home to tea. The evening on the inner garage security contacts and then rest. The news today was of Britain paying the price for hosting the US attack on Libya. In the Lebanon, the British Ambassador’s residence came under fire and three British hostages shot dead through the head in Beirut as a direct reply by terrorists. At Heathrow airport, a bomb was intercepted and would have destroyed an El-Al jumbo jet by a timer device designed to explode in mid-air. A massive police search is on for an Arab whose girlfriend was duped into carrying the holdall on. Another British journalist was kidnapped by gunmen in Beirut and has vanished. Cyprus is being heavily guarded and all Britons are feared targets of Arab revenge. Gaddafi appeared on TV for the first time since the raids, but US intelligence is trying to sponsor rumours of civil unrest, which he denies. He calls Reagan & Thatcher ‘child murderers’ and said the raids were aimed at his own house and tent. He asked for Tripoli’s lights to be turned back on and crowds danced and demonstrated triumphantly and defiantly in the streets. At Westminster, Mrs Thatcher came under bitter attack and was accused of putting British citizens in danger, provoking terrorism. Geoffrey Howe justified our actions to another meeting of EEC Foreign Ministers this morning, but did not join a group photograph and no joint statement was issued. The European Parliament condemned the attack as ‘a flagrant violation of International Law’ and threw out a compromise resolution backed by Britain. Demonstrations continued in European capitals. In Ulster, demonstrators also, but this time against the killing of a youth by a rubber baton round. The weather was milder today, but with showers, some of which were heavy. Still the temperature is colder than normal, but there is a promise of better weather to come, as an anticyclone over the Atlantic edges north eastwards.