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Family visit to Letchworth leisure centre for swimming and then to a Biggleswade fair before dropping in to Bickerdike’s garden centre on a day when a thousand demonstrators march in support of the jailed miners and a Florida brush fire spreads 350miles out of control and destroys 90,000 acres and 150 homes
Awake quite early to find Diana had taken her things downstairs. A while for The Sunday Times to arrive, so I read more of the Investors Chronicle as I drink my tea. Down to a nice breakfast of fried egg, bacon, mushrooms and bread, then up again completing the papers by 10.00am. Up, shaved, showered and dressed and the kids persuaded me to take the family swimming. To the car all and off down the A1 to Letchworth and the North Herts Leisure Centre. We all swam in the pool and enjoyed the artificial waves and Della got a little bit wet and wailed, so we put her in a pool-side playpen. One highlight was a girl with the nearest to a perfect figure I had ever seen and I couldn’t help staring. Afterwards to the Letchworth McDonalds for lunch of cheeseburger, fries and apple pie after, then back up the A1 to Biggleswade where I went to the auction fare and left the family in the car whilst I looked round. A fair sized event and I homed in on a dressing stand, which I bought for £12. Made of oak in the 1930s it takes a suit and is ideal for overnight clothes. I also bought an oxo tin for 85p to match another for expanding my* collection. On then to Sandy and a look round Bickerdikes Garden Centre. I bought a mini barbeque to keep on the boat and lots of supplies and new implements for both sets we now have.
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Very little time on my office on a warm and clammy Cup Final day that reached 20 deg C before a family lunch in The Anchor and more time reading to them after a frustrating FA Cup match where Man United won with ten men as Dr David Owen refuses to join a slagging match with Neil Kinnock
Awake feeling rather clammy on a humid morning and to read the Saturday Financial Times with my morning tea. An interesting article on croquet whereby I see that we have been playing it wrongly and resolve to correct it. Down to a breakfast of dry toast, but refused to eat it and boiled myself a duck egg instead. More reading afterwards and the morning post brought a further burden in the form of the Economist and Investors Chronicle. The weather was fine, warm and sunny again this morning and so, up quickly to shower and dress after which, out to the birds (11 eggs) until safely fed. A little time at the office scanning the mail. No mentions in Computer Weekly, but a couple of invitations to computer industry events. All out together by car (except Daniel, who is at school each Saturday morning) and, dropping Diana and Debbie off at the Co-op to do some shopping, I drove off to Biggleswade Mills with the baby and bought two bags of layers pellets. The cashier treated me to a long story about his hobby of caravanning and how his son-in-law had copied a key to deceive him, which was rather strange. Back to St Neots to give Di the car and take Debbie to buy her sweets. No luck in finding the items I needed to effect some boat repairs and renovation of my butlers tray however.
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Another busy time on a fine and warm day completing financial transactions, phone interviews and visiting Cambridge shops and antiques dealers before back to read Aesop’s Fables to Debbie and Dan as Kinnock weighs in to David Owen and inflation rises to 6.9% and the tube strike is on for Monday
Awake early and some time to wait until the tea and paper arrive. News stories of the decline of profits at Micro Focus and most hi-tech and electrical shares suffer as a result, in a further loss of confidence by the City in my industry. Breakfast of cereal and back to finish off my reading. Washed, dressed, ready and outside on another beautiful day. 11 eggs today. To the office for a while and to reconcile my Barclays bank account and work out how to use my new Abbey National cheque-save account, as the cheque book arrived today. After talking to the Huntingdon Manager, I decide to keep a minimum £10,000 in the cheque-save account, £40,000 in the 90 day high interest account and I will now get the 7 day account cancelled and arrange for the 90 day interest to be paid into the cheque-save account instead. Get it? Well I can understand why! At this stage of bank/building society de-regulation, all this hocus pocus is necessary to maximise interest. In a year or two I predict a single interest bearing and chequing account. With Diana fretting, out quickly to the car and off together by car to Cambridge, parking at the Round Church car park. Coffee together at Belinda’s, then to scan Buckies opposite for new antique silver items and buy an ‘Encyclopaedia of Antiques’ by Arthur Negus from Heffers.
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Eventful, if dry and anticyclonic, day ended listening to cuckoo and thrush after rescuing a New Zealand boat crew suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, attending antique auctions at St Neots and Wisbech, studying Mepal bridge, made famous by the Mascotte cruise in 1894 and tending my ducks and doves as 40,000 Ethiopian refugees two miners are given life for the concrete block manslaughter and Francis Pym claims to be strengthening the Tory party by opposing Thatcher’s excesses
A late night reading the local papers and then a late morning dawdling along as I ate breakfast, read the paper, and listened to radio programmes on parliament, business receivership and natural history. Eventually, at 10.00am, having washed and dressed, out to the birds. The baby dove is near feathered, with white tufts, but the ducks only laid 9 eggs overnight. Still, with 5 dozen sold lately, there is no need to take any duck eggs to the market. The post was late too and no messages of note at the office. Off by car alone, then, first to St Neots to look at the furniture auction lots and then the long drive through Huntingdon, Chatteris and March to Wisbech for the viewing day of an important antique auction. Eventually got there and parked my car in the town centre, walked around and bought an auction catalogue from Grounds (£1) and a street map of the fens (£1.20). I took lunch at a self-service café and then drove to the viewing hall and spent about 3 hours looking round. A fair range of quality antiques – perhaps too high quality for me – and I did not find anything worth returning tomorrow for. Best was a drawing set (but not as good as mine) and an antique furniture maker’s tool chest, full of block planes for copings and gougers. Having looked thoroughly at all the silver and furniture to increase my knowledge, I set off eating a vanilla cock-ice and eventually found Elm Road and the Old Coaching House antique showrooms. Asking for plain, antique, fiddle flatware, the helpful lady directed me to a drawer with a few pieces in it. No table or tea spoons of interest, but I found an SH/DC salt or mustard spoon of late period and bought that for £12.