Terrible gale and storm today kills four people and 30,000 chickens whilst Daniel has his friends around for the day, Diana takes the girls to cousin Catherine’s birthday and I work further on my alarm system. Pictures show Britannia evacuating hundreds of Britons from South Yemen where 9,000 locals die in the civil war, Thatcher’s sillyroad option for Channel Tunnel is rejected and Leon Brittan’s career is dead in the water
A fair lay in and good night’s sleep. Awake to my morning tea and then down to a fine fried breakfast, which is always a pleasure on Sundays. Showered, dressed and then down to the sitting room to relax for a while. I empty the ash try for the new fireplace for the first time (or rather, give it to Daniel, who does it for me) and then settle to write yesterday’s journal and then to read the Observer from cover to cover. Diana leaves with the girls for niece Catherine’s first birthday. Daniel has Steve round this morning and uses the chance to try out the Evinrude on the dinghy. I start my alarm system again, getting up the floorboards upstairs and running a new wire for my telephone communicator. The job almost finished by lunch and so I go down to prepare the meal.
Di has left roast beef cooking for me and shepherd’s pie for Daniel & all on automatic. I have to warm up some beans on toast for Steve and we are then ready. Tired of teabags, I use real leaves (PGTips) to make the tea and thoroughly enjoy it. Gary hangs around hungrily, but I do not feed him too – my rule is that guests have to be invited (the day before) otherwise they take things for granted and hang around on the off chance. A terrible gale and storm today, with rain and hail lashing the house from the north west. I am still not satisfied with the contours of the rear balcony, as it held a pool of water afterwards. This afternoon, I watched the Rugby Union International on the TV and in the recorded highlights saw England beat Wales and Scotland beat France and both were even and thrilling matches, but relied too much on goal kicking, which is a modern tendency of the game. Out to the birds, but the doves already roosted and the ducks hungry. To the alarm again and a messy time cutting away the plaster to recess the alarm box, which was finally done. News is of Britannia taking off another 200 refugees from South Yemen, including 15 Britons, but still 25 Britons remain. The first photographs are brought back. The earlier evacuees are delivered to Djibouti, along with thousands of Russians disembarking from merchant and navy vessels. 9000 South Yemenis have been killed in the civil war and the fighting continues. Leon Brittan today claims that a dirty tricks campaign is being waged against him, with the latest accusations that he also pressured GEC as well as British Aerospace. The channel link choice is expected to be an all-train tunnel, in spite of Thatcher’s preference for a road and rail link. The cost and technology was just not on, and Thatcher backed down in view of the technical reports and to avoid another Euro row. The winds were widespread today and claimed the lives of 4 people and 30,000 chickens (!), who were killed when their building collapsed. The weather forecast is for the winds to moderate, but resume tomorrow. The very mild weather is set to turn colder again.