Diana still suffering with her coughing on this icy cold day during Steve Hicks stayover whose new day got off to an unexpectedly early start before the start of a busy builders day for the rest of us and then a nice evening meal of stewed beef with Daniel in the dog house again. The so called ‘Loyalist’ attacks on the homes of Royal Ulster Constables a real problem and the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Palestine bigger ones still.
Di had to sleep in the lounge last night as she could not stop coughing and our guest, Steve, woke up at 6.45am, thought it was 8.45am due to a faulty watch and woke up Daniel. It was only when they were eating a hurried cereal breakfast that they realised his mistake! Took some while to get into the shower room and then I only just managed to get dressed before the workmen started to arrive. First the plumber to fix the radiator, then the carpenter to fix a door. Then a builder to remove the tile ready for the coat hooks to be fitted, so that soon the en-suite shower room was as ready as it is going to be for tomorrow’s carpet fitting. Time at last for my breakfast and then I settled down to my task of floorboard screwing.
As lunchtime approached, the pool men were pressing me to go out and lay my security alarm wires between the garages, before they cemented the wall foundation and so, after rolls and the leftovers from yesterday’s beef, I did just that. An icily cold day, with a northerly breeze, making an outside work very uncomfortable. I had to try a second soldering iron with higher power, as the first one could not get up to temperature. This afternoon the job of cleaning out the bedroom and neighbouring gallery, so that, in the end, the room was clear, floor secure and scraped clean, and furniture suite moved onto the gallery landing. Di cooked a nice evening meal of stewed beef, which we all enjoyed and then I braved the weather again to cart out the rubbish from the house, turf out the decorators old paint tins into the garage and bring in the salvaged underlay to spread it out in our vacant bedroom. Daniel was in the dog house today for breaking half a dozen rules and ended up injuring his toe. Main news is of continued ‘Loyalist’ attacks on the homes of Royal Ulster Constables and the RUC Chief Constable declares that there is an orchestrated campaign of the police intimidation by established organisations. News also of Sir Clive Sinclair selling out the microcomputer side of his business to Alan Sugar of Amstrad. He has never managed to follow through the initial designs with successful management, manufacture and marketing and his overall enterprise was mortally wounded by the C5 debacle. Customs officers are stepping up their measures against hard drug dealing and publicising a new hot line. Ian Botham is starting a libel action against the papers that have been printing stories of drug taking and love affairs. Soviet backed Afghanistan troops have launched major attacks against the Afghanistan guerrillas and Israeli jets have bombed Palestinian camps in Southern Lebanon for the third time this year. The weather forecast is for outbreaks of snow & sleet, with a strong to gale north-east wind and temperatures near zero! Tomorrow will be a near gale force wind, making temperatures of 6degC seem like freezing.