Another day of family holiday in a hotel with Diana seeing the doctor with tonsillitis, Daniel and I playing table tennis and Debbie finding some friends to play with but, most surprising, little Daniella is eating full meals after an outing where we get stuck in the rain and before a chance for a quitter dinner. All this as the railway dispute deepens, the Middle East is in more chaos, and a Sikh leader who signs a reconciliation with Ghandi is shot dead in a temple. Crazy world
Awake a little early and Diana tells me of her very poor night; kept awake by her terrible sore throat and difficulty in swallowing. I phone reception at 8.00am and they arranged for a doctor’s appointment in mid-morning. Washed and down for breakfast and Daniella ate well and has now settled to the new routine. Only Debbie is eating scraps and seems difficult to please, but I arrange for her to have some plain bread, which she enjoys with butter and marmalade. After breakfast, Diana takes the girls to the nursery and Daniel and I take the first formal pictures with the video camera. We play them back for Di to see as well and are all well pleased with the results. Daniel and I play table tennis as Di goes to the doctor and the nursery nanny takes an entourage of little children swimming. She is the younger of the two and sports a nice figure if she were not too plump.
Unfortunately, the hotel pool was very cold as the hotel pleaded they had run out of fuel oil to heat it, which is a bit strange as the same excuse was used 5 years ago when we were last here. We think they are just economising. I order coffee in the TV lounge and read my FT, but there is no test match cricket this morning due to the rain at Edgebaston. Then Diana returns from the doctor, who diagnoses bad tonsillitis and prescribes a course of penicillin. All of us set off for the centre of Mundesley for some shopping and sightseeing, but the fine morning had turned to rain and we were trapped half way and had lunch at a Chinese restaurant that did some simple English dishes. All back to the hotel for the rest of the day. Reading, table tennis, video editing and, best of all, watching England find enough fine weather to skittle the Aussie’s out and win the 5th test to put them one up in the series, with one to go. At tea time, I helped feed Daniella and was surprised to see her eat a large plate of roast beef, peas, carrots and potatoes and follow it by a plate and a half of ice cream – but no burp!! Daniel has been playing the fruit machines to win at least £7 by the end of the day; and Debbie has made several friends, including Helen and John. They end their day watching a video film all together before Di bathed ours and put them to bed. Thus freed we had a bath and then a dinner. The hotel is full of old people again, arrived by coach, but a better balance of families to coachies, with at least 7 families and a dozen children to keep the place busy. A nice dinner of prawn cocktail, turkey and strawberry gateaux and then back to our room for the TV news. The scene is now fully set for the British Rail management/union showdown, but the BR negotiators seem to be willing to reconsider the dismissals if a return to work takes place. More chaos from the ruins of Lebanon and an Israeli diplomat was murdered in Cairo, Egypt. The latest South African news centres on the appeal for clemency at the death sentence passed on a Johannesburg man. A Sikh leader, who recently signed a reconciliation pact with Gandhi, has been shot dead at the end of a service in a Sikh temple. Martin McGinnis is in police custody tonight after failing to pay earlier fines. The weather forecast tomorrow is for dry and sunny weather and this is continuing for a few days.