Memorable birthday parties for Debbie and Della; who are growing up fast, doing well at school and even Daniel passed his UEA exams
Memorable birthday parties for Debbie and Della; who are growing up fast, doing well at school and even Daniel passed his UEA exams

The summer was delayed by periods of cold and rain, washing out the Little Paxton School Fete and national cricket and tennis events. We still had successful and memorable birthday parties for Debbie and Della; who are growing up fast, doing well at school and even Daniel passed his UEA exams. We remembered my Mum on her birthday and my late Dad on Father’s Day and caught up with Di’s parents regularly on Tuesdays in Cambridge.

I had two trips to Heronshaw, working on the outbuildings and on Paxton Princess getting her in reasonable shape for the season. I had meetings with my architect and quantity surveyor agreeing plans for Heronshaw’s replacement, with the addition of a new boathouse and wet dock adjacent. After lots of work, and a setback over the hydraulics, Paxton Princess was fully prepared and, apart from cosmetics, was all ready to go cruising but, despite using used Wayplan to calculate passage plans round from Norfolk to Kings Lynn, I made the decision not to try to get the boat round to the Great Ouse this month as the weather was too unsettled.

Much work was done on my Range Rover, Rolls Royce and Reliant with all three now in working order. I had just a little time for my financial planning and organising my personal affairs and investments.

It was a full month of work as Local Organiser for the LibDems organising contributions to three councils and the parliamentary constituency whilst backing up publicity and electoral success with councillor briefings and Focus newsletter editing printing and circulation. This, whilst organising an unstoppable anti-smoking campaign backed up with TV, radio and newspaper interviews. I still found time to chair a joint meeting of the Parish Council, Village Hall Committee, and local residents on the subject of the proposed extensions to the village hall as a combined Parish Meeting, which was a tricky but ended up as a great success.

The national news was of the Tories falling still further behind in the opinion polls and the stock market was falling again. The national Tories ended up in all sorts of bother again with ex-Prime Ministers, Thatcher and Heath, falling out over Europe in a pretty big way. 

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The weather for June was very disappointing, being very wet and cold for the most part and we hear that we have already had one of the coldest spells on record for the time of year with frost, even, expected one night! This made the Little Paxton School Fete a bit of a wash out an I spent a few depressing windy and showery days working at home. Later in the month, it became showery but milder than of lat and was even dry, sunny and warm at times but seemed to get cooler in the evening.  The England Test match and Wimbledon tennis were less fortunate with the weather ad were wash-outs.

The month had started on the first day with Debbie's birthday party with 45 guests and ended with Della's on the last day which was said it was the best party that their guests had ever come to! Taking stock on the development of the two girls. Della is growing up very fast and will complete her last days at Little Paxton School in the coming month. Debbie has the onset of teenage relationship problems and is quite difficult to get on with, but at least she does well at school. Her parents’ evening at Kimbolton School for a much better report than we ever got for Daniel! It was also my Mum's birthday, and I was over there installing a new pond pump and net as a present after the loss of her two large fish. We remembered my dad on Father’s Day as Di and I visited his grave to replace the flowers.  We also welcomed Di’s father Charles with Daniel and Angela for a fine roast beef lunch. Diana has lost a lot of weight and is still going strong to prepare for our summer boating holidays. Daniel and Angela also visited regularly, and Daniel brought news of having (just) passed his UEA exams. We regularly caught up Di’s parents at Eadon Lilley’s for coffee and for lunch after at The Copper Kettle in Cambridge. Di took Debbie off to Kimbolton for her day trip to France.

I had two trips to Heronshaw, working on the outbuildings and the Paxton Princess getting her in reasonable shape for the season. The new fences at Heronshaw and its newly built-up drive are a revelation and helped me to make much of the facilities and appearance of the place. The pest controller quoted for treating our garage for woodworm, as we wired up the garage and shed for electricity, cleared out the garage and shed and made shelves in the boathouse to store all of the belongings taken out and Steve and I spent one day replacing fencing panels.  A trip up the river on the Jolly to The New Inn for lunch allowed me to look at the riverside bungalows which led to me deciding to add a boathouse separate to Heronshaw. I then had meetings with architect and quantity surveyor to discuss and agreed plans for Heronshaw’s replacement which was for a smaller bungalow with less cost and complexity and also a boat-house in the dyke and new wet dock to retain the same amenity as before

By the close of the month, Paxton Princess was fully prepared and, apart from cosmetics, was all ready to go. The refrigeration engineer fixed the Paxton Princess fridge and I wired up our boat navigational computer into the plotter and auto-pilot with Tony Martina. Everything was going well until Steve had a disaster trying to help as he inadvertently detached a hydraulic pipe at both ends and fluid was gushing out, debilitating the boat so that a sea trial the following weekend was out of the question. John Coulling eventually fixed the Paxton Princess hydraulic system, and I documented the systems and wiring and then commissioned the alarm on the boat. I had also run up the Amstrad and used Wayplan to calculate passage plans round from Norfolk to Kings Lynn but made the decision not to try to get the boat round to the Great Ouse this month as the weather is too unsettled at the moment. I installed the short-wave aerial on the southern gable of the house to be ready to try out the weather system on the personal computer and then playing with my new Weatherfax system by picking up signals from Bracknell.

Back home, the month ended with me getting the Range Rover serviced and the Rolls Royce tested and back on the road again and into service with Woods in Essex. The fact that I also got down to commissioning the Reliant was also a great achievement and the forthcoming MOT test is being awaited with bated breath. I had just a little time for my financial planning and organising my personal affairs and investments.

Much of my time was spent with political meetings that spanned three councils and the parliamentary constituency, but the main time was working on editing, laying out and delivering our LibDem Focus newsletters as local campaign organiser; contributing to the AGM of the local St Neots and District Liberal Democrat Branch which was a great success and helping with the Stapleford by-election. Having got many more colleagues elected, I helped my councillors to cooperate and plan local political strategy. I also managed the assimilation of former opponent Ross McKay and organised a solution to the disbarment of Tony Carmedy one of our newly elected councillors. At the meeting of the HDC Southern Area Group I declined to oppose John Denny for the chair but was elected Vice-Chair despite Bill Longford’s antics.

An early start one day and journey to Cambridge again for my apparently successful live Radio Cambridgeshire interview concerning my anti-smoking campaign which was largely supported by the HDC Personnel Committee. TV and other radio interviews followed on the same theme to make acceptance of my non-smoking policy a certainty. Then off again to the village hall to chair a joint meeting of the Parish Council, Village Hall Committee, and local residents on the subject of the proposed extensions to the village hall as a combined Parish Meeting, which was a tricky but ended up as a great success.

The national news was of the Tories falling still further behind in the opinion polls so everybody are now discussing the possibility of the Conservative government losing the next election. Margaret Thatcher made a major speech on European co-operation in the USA and was tempted during questions to voice her hostility to the concept of a Federal Europe which pleased her American audience but could cause further trouble in the ranks of the Tory party. The national Tories ended up in all sorts of bother again with ex-Prime Ministers, Thatcher and Heath, falling out over Europe in a pretty big way. When Thatcher then spoke on Europe in the House of Commons the event was a bit like a voice from the grave. The stock market was falling again.