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A good year for me and my family as we complete our creation of The Hayling View, buy new vehicles, and get over illnesses to enter the Christmas period fit enough to enjoy it, although my extended family are still struggling with health issues. Have managed to research and write much of Little Paxton’s history for my book and also managed our investments and financial plans well. Elsewhere, there are Still unresolved conflicts in the Middle East. Rising trouble in China and India, and the apartheid in South Africa ever more repressive and unfair, Russians will resume nuclear testing with the first new test of the Americans in the New Year. The Americans have already breached SALT-2. The EEC admits Spain and Portugal and this attracts US trade tariffs and there is much more European reform needed on CAP and EEC budgetary control. Thatcher is pursuing very divisive polices and I pray she goes soon. Much anger, conflict and the normal sad deaths from natural disasters, conflicts and misadventures but hope still being expressed at year end by HM The Queen and The Pope.
And so ends December and with it, 1986. A more settled year for us, with the end of the house extensions and improvements, construction of the swimming pool and completion of the riverside gardens. We are getting over our coughs and colds, but my poor Mum and Dad are only just mastering theirs. Mum is still very uncomfortable and unhappy with the pain and discomfort of her hip and hoping desperately that the New Year will bring a new and effective operation. The Butterfields are also in the wars. Recovery for Alf has been slow, but steady, after the removal of malignant growths from his back and Freda is retiring early with the affects of thrombosis in her legs. Daughter Stacey has also been in the wars with asthma and allergies and son Chris is still out of work. We have helped them in the past, but will no doubt need to help them again in the future. On Di’s side of the family, her parents are well and so is brother Charlie and sister Sue, but I worry about Charlie’s job and career security, as I fear he could be out of a job soon and their expenditures seem out of pace with their income. Other friends and relatives get by. We are enjoying our new Range Rover and look forward to the arrival of a Jaguar Daimler early next year. We still have the swimming pool boiler contract to sort out, and the river bank to pile, but all’s fairly quiet on the home front. I have become the Lord of the Lintons, but have been approached already about selling the Manors at a ‘good profit’. The Lordship of Little Paxton still eludes me for now. Have managed to research and write much of Little Paxton’s history and hope to finish most of the rest before long.