Cold and snowy but quieter day with Daniel off school tending the doves and ducks in the freezing weather before our Happy Eater family lunch and some nice log fires as Thatcher castigates the miners at her Tory YC Bournemouth conference and Glenys Kinnock visits to support the ladies at Molesworth
No urgency to get up this morning as Daniel’s school was closed because of the snow. A good fall of snow had continued overnight and the wind coldly from the north east as well. A long lay in reading The Financial Times and Economist, after breakfast downstairs. At 10.30am, up at last, washed and dressed and out to the birds. I put the bird table on the towpath, after cleaning it of snow, and put on some seed. The grizzle hen swooped down, but could not quite land and fluttered into the snow the other side of the evergreen hedge. As I recovered it, I spotted the Blonde Qualmond that had been forced down in the night, with her tail and wing feathers frozen with snow. I take her indoors, thaw out the snow and then put her in the garage in a bucket lined with cloth to dry! Up with the ladder to the dovecote and to clear off the snow. I then found the Dilute Indigo hen, who had been missing for days, dead in the top box, which was a shame. However, I do have more of that colour and I must breed these stronger for outdoor survival. I would be more worried, though, if the Blonde Qualmond was to fall by the wayside, as I want two pairs to breed this spring and then we will be well set. Over to the ducks and eight more eggs again today.
Di is wondering where to put them now that the fridge is full. Then to clear the paths before bringing in a lot of logs for later on. Diana having returned, we all set off in her car to The Happy Eater for our Saturday lunch. Back after and I light the fire early as it is everywhere cold. An afternoon’s reading and I catch up on a dozen or more journals before and after a tea of prawns with Diana’s chocolate sponge cake to follow. The weather today has been cold and this night will be even colder, -4degC (and -15degC when the eastern wind chill is taken into account), which makes prospects for The Lady and the doves a bit grim. In the north of Ireland today, winds of up to 75mph helped to build up 5ft snow drifts, and roads throughout England were in some state. News that security is tight for the PM’s appearance at the Bournemouth YC Conference and she uses the media coverage to attack the miner’s strike yet again. A one ton, second world war bomb, found in Sheffield, was defused today, but is still unstable and the neighbourhood is evacuated. Mrs Glenys Kinnock visited the Molesworth cruise site today, criticising the draconian action to clear the peace camp and claiming that the British public were against the siting of cruise missiles there.