Cambridge shopping trip with the Diana and meal at The Copper Kettle and then to check on The Lady at Buckden as a huge LPG explosion in San Juanico,Mexico, kills hundreds and more miners return to work
Slept well and woke to my morning tea. Persuaded a reluctant Deborah to bring my Financial Times and read most of it by breakfast. A meal of melon and the last of my natural honeycomb on toast before up to wash, shave and dress. Out in old clothes to change the dove’s food and water and check their pairings and ring numbers. It seems that the Blue cock has paired with the Blonde Qualmonde hen; the elder Dilute Indigo cock with the Grizzle hen and the young Dilute Indigo cock with its sister hen:- all exactly as the previous owner and breeder had predicted! Then to the riverside to feed the ducks before an hour and a half I the office sorting papers and returning calls. No post of note today. Then away to Cambridge with Diana and a salad roll and coffee lunch at ‘The Copper Kettle’ before round town to shop.
A watch each for Daniel and Debbie for Christmas, books for friends, and I pick up a book from the library on pigeon breeding and order a further title on Fancy Pigeons. A look round Heffers, but nothing interesting, before back to the car and off home. We stopped off at Buckden Marina and saw The Lady up in the workshed and varnishing being done. A brief visit to St Neots for papers and then to call de Zoete Bevan and Barclays to complete my British Telecom ¼ million share application. News tonight of Peter Walker warning about the violent implications of continued unemployment in the first Harold McMillan lecture. This sole survivor of the economic wets compared today with the 1930’s saying that in some ways it could be worse. More miners return to work today, but the holiday Christmas pay qualification ends this week. Violence in West Yorkshire last night was the worst seen with scores of lamp posts felled for barricades and power plant and offices ransacked. Pictures on the TV of a massive explosion and fire in Mexico at the principle gas and oil distribution centre. 350,000 are evacuated, 10s of thousands are made homeless, 5-7,000 severely injured and 5-600 die. The weather today was fine with plenty of sun today for the first time in weeks. The day ends with a drizzle as normal.