Visit to Peacock’s Auction in Bedford for folding furniture before lunch at The Anchor and some afternoon work gathering logs after my garden clearance and then an evening enjoying Goldie Hawn
Awake to my morning tea and I sat on the left of our bed drinking it and gazed at the new Hayling View. Down to breakfast of cornflakes and top of the milk and to see Daniel safely off for his examination school day. Then to The Financial Times and the City news, but fortunately the stock exchange took a breather yesterday and the electronics shares were not further hit. Up at 8.30am as the girls came in to my bedroom, and then me showered, shaved and dressed. Out to the birds – the doves were very hungry as they could not come down to eat properly for two days, due to the bonfire smoke. No such problem with the ducks and nine eggs this morning. Marilyn’s Aylesbury (“Michael”) is waiting for them and has adopted them. To the house and, after one or two false starts, we set off for Bedford and the Peacock auction. I found another mahogany folding deck/steamer chair and a small oak gate leg barley twist table. I bought them both for about £70-odd the two, although I had to stay until 12.30pm to get to the second lot number 166. Diana had collected Daniel and we set off together to The Anchor for lunch.
Ploughman’s for them and steak and kidney pie for me. Home after and some time watching the cricket at Lords, where Australia had run up a first innings lead of 130 and England lost two opening batsmen, whilst still 100 behind in the second innings. Out then to the riverside garden, where, in four barrow loads, I remove some more logs to the garage. A session filming the cleared land and river views from all windows on to my tape that will cover the whole of the garden and house conversion. Tea of pink salmon salad and ice cream to follow and then out and over to Gordon Road where, over the next two hours, I pack up and transfer all of our remaining belongings to No 7 Willow Close. As I do so, the policeman calls again and talks about the theft of our fuel can – he is about to challenge the boys about it today. By mid-evening and, with Diana’s help, I had completed the task and so spent the time before bed playing back videos of our last boat trip to St Ives and the first part of our house conversion. To bed a little late after watching part of a Goldie Hawn film and enjoying her immensely.