Debbie in her horse-riding gear but ill on this day
Debbie in her horse-riding gear but ill on this day

Debbie was too ill with a chest infection to go to school today but I carried on working on my book and Diana and I prepared the new chest for Sundance. It seems we need one of our heating boilers replaced but the surprise today was a stock of a surge of stock exchange valuations with investors fearing that they miss the recovery.

I was up at a reasonable time this morning to find poor Debbie under the weather with a chest infection so that she could not go to school. I spent today working on my ‘Little Paxton after the Enclosures’ section, which I finished and so I am now able to start the more modern chapters. Thankfully, my computer get going all right today but I avoided switching it on or off to avoid any possible problems. Di finish painting the chest this morning and afternoon and then I sprayed the name Sundance on through the stencils. I got a bit depressed this evening when I calculated that I have only laid out about 1/3 of the master artwork pages. At this rate it will take me until the middle of the month of February to complete the job as well. At least I have done some of the most difficult chapters that had beaten me in previous years and I’m getting good advice on the correction of chapter copy. I broke off early tonight, feeling quite tired. I had caught the Ohgon again this morning and treated its wound will carry on with the Mercurochrome until the back wound clears up.

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I rather ignored the ducks and the doves today, but Pete was here. The gas man came and diagnosed our boiler needed a new motor after it failed this morning, blew its views, and left half the house without heat. The news today is of several surprising stories. The stock exchange surges up beyond the FTSE 2000 level after the trade deficit was ‘only’ £14 billion for the year. They seem to have taken leave of their senses and are stampeding so as not to be left out if a recovery is possible. I am having no part of it. Another story is of the appeal court quashing sentences on two men and a woman for assaulting their lodger-rapist by holding him down and pouring boiling water onto his genitals; a popular decision but one overlooks the torture and savagery of the act. We are indeed a violent society; so much so that a woman died today in a fire because she had such strong security doors that the fireman could not get into savouring time.