Varied day welcoming Daniel and Diana’s friends for meals between which I also make progress on my Hayling View security installation as the Westland Helicopter affair flares up and Commodore axe 230 jobs their UK computer plant which vindicates my BMMG exclusively British membership approach
Slept well and read the morning paper with my tea before breakfast. A pleasant meal, with the children behaving reasonably and then my shower room routine. A morning and, indeed a day, working on my alarm system, internal No3 and external No4 circuits, but first I went out to feed the doves and let the ducks out. 1 more egg. A bright day, but with a cold northern breeze that made an outside job chilly. Last night I had finished putting a channel in the skirting around the playroom and this morning I went outside and did a similar thing around the playroom French doors. They had only been primed and so I was not disturbing the finish. Then (just as Joan had tidied the playroom and rear hall) I managed to drill through the outside playroom wall to find my route back to the alarm box. Then to the playroom French doors, drilling the door and frame to take a five terminal contact, before it really was lunch time. Daniel had his friends Jonathan and Steve round again and they all three ate like horses.
I had yet more sausages, carrots, peas etc. and, with pie and ice cream to follow, managed to keep Della happy as well. After lunch, a bit more drilling on the playroom to west hall door frame, before Di started to panic about the mess and her friends arriving at 2.00pm. We cleared up OK and then I set to work elsewhere as Linda Richardson (+ Emma & Holly) and Helen (+ three children) arrived. Those little girls were supposed to play in the playroom, but I kept finding them all over the house and shooing them back, as the three ‘mums’ nattered away in the kitchen. First I went to Daniel’s room, as he was out of the house for once, and put the contact onto his balcony door. I had to virtually rehang the door first as it was very tight to the frame. I then ran two wires through the wall to prove that the hole was OK. Down to the lounge, where I put a four wire contact in the lounge to west hall door, by again drilling through the wall and I am getting quite expert at it. On to the lounge French doors and I had to take one off to fit the contact, this time to the bottom. Then to connect the contacts and fix a junction box to the corner of the lounge, which was a long fixing, soldering and taping job, that I only managed to complete after 10.00pm. I then collapsed in the sitting room with Diana, my Bournvita, and the tail end of a Clint Eastwood film on the TV, before I summoned the energy to get up and lock the house and go to bed. News today of £900m order from the MOD to Vickers and Cammell Laird for submarines and torpedoes. The latter are to be 2000 sting rays from Marconi, part of the GEC group. Westland are in new talks with Sikorsky/Fiat to try to match the rival European bid and Heseltine jumps back in the debate, with further emphasis that the UK will not be buying a US designed battle helicopter as Westland hope. The Corby assembly plant of Commodore is axing 230 jobs and their Chairman, an American, states that the company only needs a few highly automated plants and that assembly plants are no longer needed. This is a vindication of my publicised views on the benefits (or rather drawbacks) of UK multinational companies and our refusal to allow Commodore to join the BMMG.