After a late breakfast of croissants, and spotting a pair of garden warblers nesting under my office balcony, I welcomed Mark Bowles the second day running and briefed him on the gardening jobs for him to do today. After my journal and some important correspondence, I sorted out the focus newsletters for delivery and continue this task for some hours completing much of it. Then a rather disorganised St Neots Museum Management committee meeting before home in time to see Daniel and Diana before they retired to bed.
The fourth and last member of the active IRA unit was captured on the continent, South Africa has scrapped their apartheid laws and now have to introduce a universal franchise to be welcomed into the international community. Gorbachev meets rival Boris Yeltsin to agree splitting the Russian and Soviet Communist parties, British arms manufacturers and the universities face financial stringency.
I was a little slow to rise after my late night and was watching the garden out of the window whilst drinking my morning tea. I then spotted the new birds that are nesting under my office balcony and managed to identify them as Garden Warblers by using my binoculars and a reference book. It is the first time I have seen them at all. Late to breakfast but Di still heated up a couple of croissants for me. I then tended the doves, fish and conservatory until the gardener arrived. Now that he has turned up two days running and is coping, I think that he will last for a while. It started raining again this morning, after the showers of yesterday, and so I gave Mark Bowles alternative gardening priorities depending on the weather. He was to remove the wallflowers, weed and tidy the beds and then plant out the remaining bedding plants in the swimming pool area if it was raining; or continue edging and strimming if the weather was fine.
** PRESS "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **
For the rest of this morning, I caught up on my journal and answered a few urgent letters and then, this afternoon, I had to sort out the FOCUS's for delivery. I laboured away at this for some hours before and after tea and so had much of it done by the time I had to go to the St Neots Museum Management Committee meeting. I arrived late with prior warning but still had to tolerate well over two hours of procrastination which I find a great frustration. There was not a great deal to discuss in terms of the agenda, but the chairman let things run and the comments involved all sorts of things that were nothing to do with the task in hand. The best news was the fact that the District Council had written to the chairman and were open to considering the use of a Riverside Park site for the museum which would be good of it were to be approved by the Leisure and Amenities Committee and the National Rivers Authority. I shot off as soon as the meeting finished at 9.40pm and got home in time to see Daniel and Diana before they went to bed.
The news today was of the capture of the fourth and last member of the active IRA unit on the continent. He was found in some woods near an abandoned car after trying to rendezvous with his handcuffed colleague who was arrested yesterday. South Africa has scrapped their apartheid law. Their whites-only parliament voted overwhelmingly to end the 37-year-old "Reservation of Separate Amenities" Act which enforced segregation between blacks and whites at beaches, parks, hospitals and town halls. With the ending of the state of emergency and pass laws, they now need to take the final step of introducing a universal franchise and then the international community will welcome them back. The reforms seem unstoppable now. Gorbachev meets rival Boris Yeltsin during the Russian Communist Party Congress in Moscow and agrees that Russia should have its own Communist Party, like other states in the U.S.S.R. Until now, the Soviet and Russian parties have been one and the same. British arms manufacturers shares are falling as the government cuts in defence spending are analysed; and the University Funding Council is now making private warnings to the government that there will be a £20m deficit in 1990-1 due to inflation and modernisation costs. The weather is due to change tomorrow to become wetter and windier.