Stayed at the house on a fresher day to varnish The Lady and restore more folding furniture as Di made her normal Tuesday shopping trip to Cambridge and then invited her friends round for a swimming party where the children were left to their own devices in the pool, against our new house rules. Thatcher steadfastly refusing South African sanctions in the House of Commons debate today despite support for them within her own party, all opposition ones and the church as an Anglo/Irish pact meeting took place in Stormont against more Protestant demonstrations
A sound night in spite of the heat and then awake at 6.45am on a much fresher morning. As the day wore on the humidity and temperature dropped further. Breakfast of wheat flakes and fresh milk after insisting that the children first clear up their rooms. Then to unlock the house, but I only opened certain of the house balcony doors, as the breeze was quite lively and cooling. I decided against joining Di on a shopping trip to Cambridge and instead stayed at home to work my way through a number of tasks. I rubbed down yesterday’s varnishing and applied two more coats, and ‘filled’ in literally, in between stopping, the worm-holes in our newly acquired high chair. I also found time to clear the swimming pool out completely;
first cleaning round the edge tiles, then ‘vacuuming’ the debris from the bottom, adjusting the chemicals, back-flushing and topping it up. Another good job done was the cleaning out of the duck house, which had become quite infested with insects and their larvae after the recent hot weather. Di home for a lunch of rather poor salad, but nicer blackcurrant tarts and cream after. I worked on this afternoon, setting up some new paving slabs and starting to tackle some new areas of varnish for The Lady. Diana had her friends and young children round for a swimming party this afternoon and I put the pool temperature up specially, but they did not bother to go in and just put in their children, against the rules, which was upsetting. Tea, Daniel’s homework and then a long session with the hose, watering our shrubs and flower beds. The forecast thundery showers never arrived. News today was dominated by South Africa again, with Mrs Thatcher refusing sanctions in a House of Commons debate. The government was critically attacked, with Thatcher in particular being accused of ‘a total incapacity to understand the underprivileged’ by Dennis Healey and of moral bankruptcy by Dr David Owen. Beneath the surface there is a deep division of deeply held views in the Tory party and many of her own side made critical speeches. Church leaders are also speaking out and a reported 300 are being held in South Africa out of a total of 3000 arrested. The total censorship is restricting any reasonable coverage of developments and local papers are printing blank sections or even not publishing as a protest and some overseas journalists are being expelled as refusing to comply. An Anglo/Irish pact meeting took place in Belfast today, at Stormont, behind barbed wire, to a background of Protestant demonstrations. Newly Knighted McGregor of the Coal Board (now dubbed British Coal) promised to pursue wider recognition of the miners breakaway union, UDM, after they failed to get NCB-negotiated pay rises. More fine weather forecast and the barometer goes up again, after sinking slowly down throughout yesterday.