Diana struggling with Della being sick and so I made the family breakfast before out to ameliorate the dumper trails on the grass verge before a fine meal of roast pork and then taking videos of the building work status as snow and ice affects Northern England and Wales and Rome and Venice floods, Rupert Murdoch bans unions and the government is trying to avoid appearing before The Defence Committee
Woken rather late and soon to read the Sunday paper (now the Observer). After a while, poor Di comes up with both Della and Debbie crying. It seems that Della was sick, Debbie tired and Di was getting more and more frustrated at not being able to get on and prepare the breakfast. I got up, took over the cooking and prepared my own fried breakfast of two slices of fried bread, egg, tomato and mushrooms and Daniel also helped by laying the table and preparing the toast and crockery. Diana’s contribution at one point was to bring Della in, let her be sick all over the floor and then take her out again, which did not succeed in putting us off.
We all enjoyed our meal and, as Di cared for Della, I settled back into the lounge chair and had only finished the paper, cover to cover, by 11.30am. Then to the shower room for a complete toilette. My best hair wash in weeks, which I did by hand rather than the swift shower addendum that it has become of late. Once dressed, out to feed the hungry doves and then to roam the length of the dumper trails in the verge, using the garden fork to try to drain the puddles of water. Alas, the rain kept falling and the cold easterly breeze made all outside ventures very unpleasant. By this time it was close to lunch and so I feed and put away the ducks and went in to eat. With Della now sleeping, Di had managed to prepare a fine meal of roast pork. This afternoon I shared my time between watching the snooker on TV and then, first filming the latest states of the Hayling View, and then transferring the last few session videos onto the master tapes. Tea with the family of warm bread and then the evening relaxing, by watching more snooker and researching my genealogy. I did read Debbie another chapter of her story, which was nicer. Main news tonight is of snow falls blocking roads in the north of England, with Buxton in Derbyshire the worst affected. Electricity is cut off from wide areas, due to power lines being down. In Wales, 100 members of rescue teams recovered 7 hikers, two of which were suffering from hypothermia. 29+ people have died in Europe, with blizzards in the south of France, Austria and Spain. Flooding in Rome and Venice added to the worst weather picture in Europe for some years. More clues to the likely cause of the shuttle disaster as different camera shots, improved by computer, show flames venting from one of the solid fuel booster rockets, which seems to indicate a fault. Rupert Murdoch said today he would never allow the print unions into his Wapping factory and he will never return to Fleet Street to print again. SOGAT will ignore 6 injunctions against their secondary picketing. Pope Paul holds an open air mass in Delhi as an Indian demonstrator throws a fire cracker to try to disrupt proceedings. Talks seem to fail this weekend to try to agree government witness availability for the Defence Select Committee and there is talk of Thatcher’s presence being requested.