Working outside clearing shrubs and assembling a frame for climbers on another very warm day with Daniel completing his last chores as a penalty for stealing the money as a further 13 blacks die in South Africa and the authorities surpress hospital casualty figures from whips, shotgun pellets and tear gas and also prevent an EU fact-finding mission from seeing Nelson Mandela whilst UK unemployment keeps rising with Maxwell moving printing from Fleet Street to Wapping and unjustified American attacks on UK air safety are rebutted
A good night’s sleep and awake to my morning tea and newspaper on another fine and sunny morning. Breakfast of toast and fruit juice, a quick wash and shave, and then out to the birds. I spent the morning putting up the support wires for the second wisteria on 7 Willow Close and ended the task after a full three hours of drilling and wire bending, reaching from the ladder and scraping fingers on the brickwork. Glad to put the job behind me, but a good job well done and I reckon it will last 5-10 years at least, with the plants maturing after 2-3. Another splendid day and it was quite unbearably hot by the time the sun had risen high and I had nearly finished. I then had a lunch of salmon, then cheese sandwiches and sank down to watch the test match on TV. The remainder of the English batsmen fell cheaply, but there then started an even greater collapse of Australian batsmen, so that by the end of the day they were beyond hope of saving the Ashes. This afternoon, I took out bow saw, pruning saw and secateurs and successfully lopped two hawthorne trees that were dominating the riverside garden path and the back garden and also the silver birch by the garages, so as to open up the shrub bed underneath to light and air.
The rest of the evening, after tea, cleaning up the mess with Daniel and ended with a veritable mountain of foliage to dispose of. Daniel completed his punishment today with that task, but had also taken Debbie to the cinema to see the Care Bear movie and done a variety of other jobs. This evening to wash my hair, which was full of brick and mortar dust, and to relax in a deep, warm bath and soothe some of the aches and pains away from today’s exertions. The gardener had mowed all of the grass and forked over in between the shrubs in the beds and the garden looked a picture. If the weather is fine in the morning I will take an updated shot for the Hayling view video. News this evening of another day’s shootings and riots in South Africa. A further 13 blacks die, on top of the 18 yesterday, and hospitals are forbidden to reveal casualties, which are now hundreds, suffering from whips, shotgun pellets and tear gas. Three EEC foreign ministers arrive on a fact-finding mission, but are not allowed to see Nelson Mandela. UK unemployment rises again this month to a shameful 13.4% of the workforce and even then the present day doctoring of the statistics excludes those leaving school for a year and others on training opportunity programmes. Robert Maxwell announces to a shocked industry that he is selling the Sporting Life and will not be printing publications including the Daily Mirror in Fleet Street anymore. A row develops between US and UK air authorities over unwise US allegations on British Air Safety and an apology and rebuttal is issued. The weather forecast to deteriorate slowly over the next few days.