Father’s Day – A nice morning with the children who brought Father’s Day cards and presents and then the morning valeting my Range Rover and Rolls-Royce, in the afternoon attending to my games lawn and dovecote before time to cool off in my swimming pool with the girls before an evening working on my Little Paxton Paper Mill history. Thatcher is her normal bullish self at the economic summit eve and criticising soccer hooligans as hippies gather in vain to celebrate the summer solstice at Stonehenge for they are moved on.
Woke up Diana in the middle of the night for once and then slept soundly until woken by the morning sun and the girls venturing in. Di made my morning tea and then I sat in bed and opened my Father’s Day cards and presents from the children. Daniel bought me a print of a couple of birds, which may be Ibis. Della bought me two chamois leathers (courtesy of Diana!). Debbie had made me a paper weight by decorating a stone and I preferred to call it a ‘pet rock’. Just shaved and rinsed before a nice fried breakfast. I weighed in at only 13stone 1/2lbs this morning. This morning, I vacuumed the Range Rover and Rolls Royce, swept the road and then managed to sponge the Rolls over and leather it clean before lunch. A nice lunch of roast chicken that Diana had spent most of the morning cooking and then I had to return to shampoo, hose and leather the Range Rover clean. By now it was very hot in the sun, making car cleaning both exhausting and difficult. I took my rests today by sitting in the shade on one of my steamer chairs, relaxing and watching the river scene.
Later this afternoon I mowed the games lawn, after scratching up the clover patches with a tine rake and then went up a ladder and stood and cleared out the dovecotes of a couple of years accumulated nesting material and droppings. I replaced a couple of mature dove chicks that had left the top wall-cote nest (one white and one blue/black). Then I took to the swimming pool and had a cooling, but exhausting, time playing with the girls there for a good half hour. A salad tea and then I worked away on my Paper Mill history tonight, whilst also popping out regularly to keep moving the lawn sprinkler, which I had been using to moisten the games lawn which is very hard and dry at the moment. Later, I wrote my journal and also watched some TV golf – the US Open championship – and saw Nick Faldo tie with Curtis Strange, so they will have to play another round tomorrow to decide. Elsewhere, Thatcher is hogging the news with bullish comments at the Economic Summit eve and hawkish comments in respect of soccer hooliganism. The hippies are gathering near Stonehenge & hoping to celebrate the Summer Solstice at this national monument, but the police are moving them on.