Relaxing day of reading and family fun and we go to see the ‘Mother Goose’ pantomime in Cambridge as UK car production looks better for a change

We lay in for too late again and resolve to rise at 7.30am at the latest in future. First breakfast and to read the paper then with family to St Neots to visit the library and the bank. Now that I have banned the morning breakfast TV, Daniel is also stocking up on books and Debbie makes her selection from the library to include a tape of Sesame Street. For myself a range of local history books on Huntingdonshire, Hinchinbrook House and the years of Charles 1st reign. On by car to Cambridge stopping on the way at the Little Chef for lunch when I had to tell the children off for bad manners at the table.

Before leaving home the hoover repair man had mended our automatic washing machine for £14 odd after the brushes were worn out and the fuse also gone. In Cambridge we shop for an hour before going to the Cambridge Arts Theatre to see Mother Goose, a Christmas pantomime. I tolerated it well, even though it had the audience in participation and the girls, for the most part, were nice to look at. I was ever more conscious of my cold developing and Daniel’s was already very bad. Home quickly afterwards and after a tea of red salmon salad and Christmas cake an evening of reading “The Kings Peace” and the other local history books. I find I am becoming more and more interested in the Civil War and Restoration and the mid-17th century life in Huntingdonshire. News today of the United States decision to pull out of UNESCO, the UN relief organisation and also of the Russian President Yuri Andropov’s continued absence from state appearances. A crisis is rapidly developing over Britain’s official frustration of French milk imports but better news from British Leyland’s Austin Rover subsidiary who have achieved record productivity and UK market penetration. Also, being compared with only 50% of Ford cars production in the UK, I resolve to consider changing the company car fleet to British Leyland when they introduce the high end executive cars in the New Year. I fail to get the ducks in again tonight and they continue barren. I am at a loss to know what to do with them to get them to start laying again. Today I persuaded Daniel to write a program to test his knowledge of arithmetic tables. It produces random numbers for multiplying together between 1 and 12 and adds any more often that the operator gets wrong or takes more than 5 seconds to enter. It costs me 80 pence in bribes but his knowledge of tables is considerably increased.