Morning trip to St Ives for an auction viewing by way of a rest after recent efforts and then a family lunch at The Happy Eater and home to do the deal on acquiring the last river plot to form our Hayling View gardens and to carry on filling our new swimming pool and assembling the barbeque as My old buddy Kenneth Baker fights for more spending on health and education but Thatcher firmly resists investment and also moves to replace her. The Stonehenge hippies are ejected and shipbuilding unions favour striking to protect their jobs.
Awoke very stiff after the last few days exertions. It was really tough working in confined spaces below floor level. I come down undressed and get Di to cut my hair whilst I updated yesterday’s journal. The paper arrives and I see Kode shares are up a further 2p to 170p, which is getting close to the level at which I will be willing to sell the family’s holdings. All this at a time when the FT index has dropped 40.8 in the week to end at 1289.5. Dressed and out to feed the ducks and doves a little early and so only 7 eggs today. Off to St Ives by car, leaving the inner garage and pool room bypassed and unlocked for the swimming pool men to start filling the pool. At St Ives we had a coffee together before I looked round the Ekins general and antique auctions, whilst Di did some shopping. Quite a few things that I liked, but we shall have to see what prices they fetch on the day. To St Neots to collect Daniel, then off to the Happy Eater for lunch. A nice meal, but the weather had turned very wet by now and the girls could not play outside on the elephant slide afterwards. Home and Bob Lane soon arrived and I showed him and his wife around The Hayling View before we exchanged solicitors details, so that I could buy his plot for £8,000 to complete our combined property.
Time to start assembling our barbeque before it was time for a tea of trout. Daniel had two girls around, as well as Steve and Gary, which was quite a revelation. He ‘did not know their names’ and ‘had picked them up at the lock’ in his normal offhand way of expressing himself. I nicknamed them ‘Flotsam’ and Jetsam’ as a consequence! Most of the evening completing the barbeque assembly and working it out, until I eventually packed it away in the summer house complete. Time only to feed the birds and lock everything up before dark. The pool is filling quite well now, after I replaced the garden hose with a wider diameter boat hose. Late news tonight is of Ian Botham’s admission in tomorrow’s newspapers that he smoked marijuana. The main news is still of the Conservative Party debate taking place after last week’s reverses. My old friend Kenneth Baker as Environment Secretary, speaks out for more health and education investment after several others, but Dr Owen confirms what a tough job it could be dislodging Thatcher, who ‘will fight like an alley cat.’ Police in riot gear acted to disperse a Hippy encampment from Stonehenge, after they were trying to masse for a pop festival over the summer solstice period. Following the mass redundancies announced by British Shipbuilders there is mounting support for a strike by the workforce against the proposal.