To St Neots Shawes auction again today for hanging baskets and more bedding plants after saving my surviving dove chicks from marauding cats and then dragging Diana and her mother Norma into the pool on a warm day with even warmer water. Thatcher is now considering the Commonwealth report to implement South African sanctions, Labour expel Derek Hatton from their party and The US approve an extradition treaty to expel IRA terrorists to the UK
Despite my late night, I was smartly up and showered this morning before the tiredness could take over. Downstairs and to see a cat chasing one of my baby doves, who fortunately managed to fly out of the way and so I rushed out and picked up both juveniles and put them on the food table for the day. Then breakfast and, after, more time with the doves. They keep eating the bedding plants and any amount of lettuce is needed to keep them at bay. I then got out my materials and started filling the worm holes in a folding chair and the high chair. I moved a table to under the southern balcony so that I could keep an eye on the doves. At 12.00 noon we had a quick lunch and then Di joined me for a trip to town and Shawes Auction.
We bought four hanging baskets and more trays of bedding plants and then had the difficult task of getting them all into the Escort Estate. Once home I put up the hanging baskets under the front balconies and then persuaded Di to join me for a dip in the swimming pool. The air temperature was 74degF and the pool 83degF, because at last we had a warm and sunny day to appreciate. When Di’s mum came back with Della and Debbie from school, we bullied her into coming in and I think that she enjoyed it. Then I got dressed and rushed off with Debbie for her horse riding at Offord Cluny. She had a ‘hack’ on the road today and so I walked up and down the main street and enjoyed looking at the old cottages, even though many of them are in a poor state of repair. Home after (scraping my Jaguar on the garage in the process) and an evening of more work interlaced with World Cup TV football. News today was of the reintroduction by South Africa’s government of the emergency regulations that allow complete repression of the population and press. The Eminent Persons’ Report is being studied by the Thatcher government and she is now noncommittal about sanctions, which I suppose is an improvement on being utterly opposed to their introduction. The Labour Party have expelled the main Militant activist of Liverpool, Derek Hatton, from the party. The US foreign relations committee has passed the extradition treaty to aid the recovery by the UK of IRA fugitives, but the treaty has been watered down more than the government wanted. The World Cup football match today was Northern Ireland vs Brazil. They needed to draw or win to progress to the next round, but Brazil firepower was too good for them and they lost 3-0. Keeper, Pat Jennings, on his 41st birthday, was magnificent and saved a further three goals at least. Another warm day is forecast for tomorrow.