The family back to the school timetable whilst I tend the ducks and doves, craft the BMMG press statement, and start typing up my history of Little Paxton Haylings as I query Freda’s wish to start a nursing home. The TUC works out a deal to prevent the AEUW expulsion, South African unrest spreads to all areas and they have at last found the wreck of the Titanic
Awake quite early as the family settles back into the school timetable. Down to breakfast of toast and fruit juice and then back to bed to write up yesterday’s journal and then read briefly the Financial Times. Up, washed and dressed rather later, therefore, at 10.00am and only just in time to be decent before cleaner Joan arrives to do the house. Out to the ducks and doves. The former had been left out last night in my absence, “as it was raining heavily,” and the latter were sitting hungrily on the feeding table awaiting my arrival. The stray blue pigeon that had joined them recently roosts on the ledge every night, flies down to the grass to feed, but has yet to come to the table with the others. Then to the office where I already had messages on the answering machine from journalists and also news that my NCC lecture had been cancelled for the next week. I quickly worked on the BMMG press statement and then telephoned Bill Barrett at Owles Hall to dictate it over the phone. This done, I returned a few calls and then started up the computer to type in my history of Little Paxton Haylings.
A fair start on the project (and two cups of coffee brought in by Joan and Diana) before lunch intervened and I appreciated the two herrings that Diana had prepared. Off afterwards to St Neots, where I visited the Shaw’s auction rooms to see the lots, before walking on to the shopping centre to compare the building society interest rates. Then to the library and some time in the reference section looking out the known history of Little Paxton Park, which is not much. Back to the office, more work, tea of boiled egg and then the evening finishing off my essay so that I was free to return a phone call to my sister Freda at 9.30. She has sold her house and is now keen on a latest scheme for starting a nursing home in Holsworthy. I ask her to think seriously about the security and pension arrangements of her career and also to talk seriously to Stacey, in particular, about what her latest plans are for her future and that of the baby. Time to read through my work, by now typed out, before watching the TV news and to bed. Main news is of a deal at the TUC conference to prevent expulsion of the AEUW for the time being. The issue will return, but by that time it is hoped that there will be a permanent solution. The South African unrest has spread from the black townships to the coloured suburbs and moves on towards the white areas. More people are injured and killed as the overstretched police are losing control and patience. In the Northern Atlantic, deep water remote cameras have found what they claim to be the wreck of the Titanic. The weather forecast, sunny and dry and the barometer is rising