Full day managing and keeping the family happy, tending the ducks and doves, laying alarm cables and then catching up with news of a Fleet Street battle between Murdock and the Print Unions, South African unrest and oil disputes between Iran and Iraq
Slept reasonably well and awake after a lay in and before my morning tea at 8.00am. Down to breakfast of fried egg, bacon, mushrooms and tomato and then up again to write my journal for these past two days. A fair task it was too and I resolve yet again not to get so behind again. Up after, washed, shaved and showered and dressed so as to help with Della in the kitchen. I calm her and do the morning drinks at the same time, as Diana is always distracted and tense on Sunday mornings. She wants to get on, but is held back by the preparation for Sunday lunch and the children. Out to the birds then – both ducks and doves equally hungry. The wind had dropped, the sun was shining on a much better day, but the river had come up a bit on yesterday and was frozen in puddles.
Until lunch, I satisfied myself with reading the Sunday Times and planning the afternoon and then we sat down for roast pork, with the remainder of the rose wine. More Christmas pudding to follow, but Di has returned loyally to her diet once more. After, we let the children play on the riverside garden ice puddles, wearing boots and stamping on the ice, until Debbie came in with cold hands and I comforted her for a while. Then the afternoon’s work, which was to clear out our old bedroom, removing any unwanted items outside to the rubbish and any not needed for now to the attic. This took most of the afternoon, but we then took the old settee up into the link room, via the balcony, and the TV and video recorder to the new sitting room. By now it was time for tea and we ate more Christmas leftovers. Daniel was bad and so had to wait 10 mins for his tea and cool off in his room. Then I spent the evening laying the fire detection cable the entire circuit from one house to the other, feeding it from loft to loft and then getting up floorboards to get it near to the heat detector. A full evening and eventually called it a day after pondering the impact on what I was doing of the possibility of break-glass fire alarm boxes and then the personal attack buttons. It is all so complicated if one wishes to do a good job and the more so if you want to lay the cables under floorboards, in lofts etc., so as not to be seen or disturbed as others might be. Professional installers only lay a few contacts and rely on space detectors, but I think they are less reliable than door contacts. Finished early to shower and wash my hair of the insulation dust and debris from the lofts. Then, in a relaxed frame of mind, gave in to a fetish, before settling to the new sitting room with its comfortable settee and TV to boot. News today of Rupert Murdock of News International (publisher of the Sun, Sunday Times and News of the World) on collision course with the print unions and strikes are threatened over the plans to remove printing from Fleet Street to the Docklands. A school strike by children in South Africa might be called off soon and a general strike substituted, but the ANC are defiant at a funeral of some of their supporters today, with a message of support from Nelson Mandela read out. Israel has pledged revenge over the Palestinian massacres at European airports last week. Another siege has ended peacefully today and the cold weather is due to continue, with fresh snow falls in places and a severe frost. Iran are to abandon oil loading at Kharg Island in favour of two southern terminals, due to perpetual Iraqi air raids.