A panic for Daniel concerning his Aquabean taking on water on affine day, completion of our new window seat, a fine Sunday lunch with our silver in use and then another swim at dusk. This as fires in a mid-channel hovercraft and in the Cote d’Azur cause consternation, a chink in the South African censorship laws reveal the extent of torture and suppression and the first Formula 3000 Halfords Superprix motor race around Birmingham motorways is a success whilst it was Children’s Day at the Notting Hill Carnival
To bed with Diana and a good night’s sleep. Time to shave and wash before breakfast, with not only the family, but also Gary and Steve as well. Fed the doves and then went to look at my window seat and gave it another coat of matt varnish. Settled in the lounge and read the Observer newspaper through (which took some time) before going out and feeding/letting out the ducks. A fine sunny morning, but cool, with a northerly breeze. Daniel got into a panic this morning, as his boat was full of water and unloaded all of its contents onto the bank, making quite a mess. I insisted that he put everything away in store and assured him that we could put Aquabean on the trolley this winter and fix it once and for good.
Debbie went to church as usual with Amy and her family and I overrode everyone’s lack of enthusiasm and set the dining room up with our best silver and china for our turkey lunch. The boys behaved themselves well and Della was perfect. A long chore washing up afterwards, with a complaining Daniel. This afternoon I got Di’s help to put the window seat in position and it looked grand. Then a dirty job clearing out the garages and sweeping some of the drive, so that we could have a car in each. A nice dusk swim and I managed to tempt Di in before we both showered and got into our nightclothes. News today is of a hovercraft being stranded after a fire in mid-channel with its passengers aboard. It had to be towed back to Dover by tugs. A six year old boy has been found dead in a farm cess pit on the North Yorkshire moors. A large forest fire has claimed 15,000 acres of the Cote d’Azur in France. Two have died and dozens of people have been injured. The chink in the South African censorship laws, caused by the courts disqualifying the legislation on a technicality (it had not been promulgated in the government gazette) has allowed stories to be published of more torture and suppression. A teenage boy and a man are missing after their fishing boat sank off the Merseyside coast, but two other crew swam to safety ashore. An experiment in Formula 3000 motor racing around Birmingham motorways was successful today, though vandals did delay the start of practice by three hours today, by removing bolts and wedges from safety barriers. The 21st Notting Hill Carnival, now the largest in Europe, with 1 million people taking part, is underway and today was children’s day. The weather was fine today, but rain is forecast for the resumption of tomorrow’s Test match, which would be a disaster. A sailing boat went past today, with two occupants, but the lack of wind and narrowness of river made the going rather tough.