Day at home tending the doves and welcoming Daniel’s visitors as the great poisoned Mars Bar hunt continues and the Irish Premier flies to Chequers for talks with Thatcher about the Anglo/Irish future agreement
A sound night’s sleep and then morning tea and The Sunday Times for a while. A super breakfast, which I always enjoy, and then back to bed to complete my reading. I have studied several separate accounts of the British Telecom share sale and all seem to recommend buying with a fair premium for stays on the first day’s trading. Eventually, I get up in late morning, shave and dress in my old coat and hat and set out in the morning mist and damp to put the ladder up and see the doves. They are faring well despite this terrible weather and I clean them out, replace their food and fit the new water dispenser. They start feeding straight away and seem in good health. I also let out the ducks and cleaned them out for the first time in a while, replacing their litter with fresh straw. Back inside to lunch and a good one of turkey, broccoli and gravy with cake to follow. Daniel and his guest for the weekend, David, finish theirs, but Debbie is still eating little through having her cold. My own cold and cough continues after what seems an age.
After lunch more reading and a football match on the television. Out at half time to put the ducks away and feed them. Also to fill up the log and coal scuttles before in to light the fire with our last logs. John Tomblin arrives to collect David and stays for some tea and biscuits. He looks tired and is fitting out the Newmarket Oxfam Shop and handling a burgeoning workload now that the Ethiopian appeal has awakened more consciences. A tea of toasted buns after he had left and I followed it with my natural honeycomb on bread rolls. An evening’s television in front of an open fire once the children had gone to bed. News tonight of the massive exercise to check millions of shop displayed Mars Bars after fears that a few had been poisoned by animal rights extremists. The Thatcher/Fitzgerald meeting started at Chequers today after the Irish Prime Minister had agreed to come to England to talk about security cooperation and the future of Northern Ireland. The weatherman tells us that there is more rain to come in the week ahead on the east coast, but temperatures a little higher.