Congested trip to Bedford after tending my ducks and dove chicks and then back via Elm Leisure for pool chemicals for the family, and their neighbourhood guests, to enjoy the warm pool for the rest of the day as I wired up lights in Bill’s Shed and caught up on the news. UK riot police stop the Hippy colony near Dorchester, Europe are encouraging the US to continue arms limitation as the Russians are claiming deterioration in US relations and South African police savagely attack a university protest march with whips and tear gas
A good night and our normal morning routine. Then dressed in my old clothes and out to feed the doves, who were hungry. I got the ladders and checked the chicks. The largest are still flourishing and developing their ‘fan-tails’. One Blonde Qualmonde (like Mum) one Indigo Dilute (like Dad). If I can be around when they leave the box and keep the cats at bay, they may well stay the course as our first winning brood. Their smaller brethren had shed their rings and so I put them on again. Then to the swimming pool and I tested it for chlorine (high) and for pH (too alkali). I put in some pool acid and started a record of my actions in the pool maintenance manual, as I thought these events might be useful to record. Time to let the ducks out, but only 7 eggs today.
The decorators returned this morning to finish the outside work and we settled them down before we left for Bedford. More traffic than I expected in town as we failed to find Elm Leisure open this morning and headed into the main car park. Coffee and biscuits with the girls, then to Peacocks. A nice old wooden high chair and some folding stools attracted my attention. I stopped by Gibbs & Dandy on the way back, but the guttering I considered buying was the wrong size. Lunch of mushroom soup, bread roll, prawn sandwich when I met the girls at Debenhams and then home via Elm Leisure for our pool chemicals. The pool temp. was 82/3degF when we returned and I spent the entire afternoon swimming. Pat brought her daughters Amy and Katherine (and foster daughter) to swim with Di, Deb and Della and so it was the first swim for several of them. Daniel joined me until tea and then I sorted him and his schoolwork afterwards. A little time for my work and I successfully ran some cables in and out of Bill’s shed, before the birds and dusk. In to lock up and watch a number of TV programmes that kept me from my journal and bed until late. Main story was a growing US-Europe split on NATO matters, as the US want to discontinue SALT2 arms control restraints. The Russians are thinking twice about the Gorbachev/Reagan summit previously planned for later this year, but are still not ruling it out, despite a deteriorating atmosphere in bilateral relations. The Hippies have moved out of their farmer’s field, after the court order was granted against them, but riot police have stopped them near Dorchester, with what purpose we have yet to find out. In South Africa’s brand of repression, police use whips and tear gas, with little regard to world opinion, as they dispersed a university student march in Johannesburg.