Working on The Lady on a fine day after balancing the swimming pool chemicals and buying more sand for the girls’ sand pit whilst also selling Kode shares and swimming with the children later. Thatcher is hinting at a June election, approving a 9 ½ % nurses pay rise, whilst in Sri Lanka Tamil bases near Jaffna are bombed again and in South Africa, on the anniversary of the state of emergency and detentions without trial, there are hand grenade attacks and strikes.
A latish night watching the TV and saw Dundee Utd win a place in the final of the UEFA cup by winning 2-0. Slept well enough and was called a little late and so had a deal of sleep. Sat in bed with Debbie, reading a book on her avoiding trouble from ‘dangerous’ men, after a leading article in the local paper told of a stable girl being killed by a man who has been arrested. Down to breakfast still in my pyjamas and had a meal of cereal with the rest. Saw Daniel off to school and then checked the swimming pool, putting in more chlorine to balance the chemicals. Then, it being such a fine day, I went out to The Lady and started work on her. I jacked up the sliding roof on the port side and secured it with two oars. Most of the varnish has survived well from last year, but this was a patch that I had not had time to previously tackle. Then inside to have morning coffee and phone a selling order for Kode shares through to Pet Roz of BZW.
Out again, using a power tool to strip off the varnish before midday when Di returned from a frantic shopping trip. Lunch of salad and ice cream to follow, then I found a message on my answering machine from Mrs Josephine Marston of the conservatory company, who wants a minimum of £37,000 to do my design! Spent an hour or two phoning her back and copying plans of the house and then went into St Neots to post them to her, pick some materials up from Fishers and some silver sand from the garden centre for the girl’s sand pit. Had a swim with the children, checked Daniel’s homework and then put The Lady to bed. This evening, wrote up my journal and watched some more snooker on TV. News today is of a 9 ½ % nurses pay rise, to be backdated to the beginning of this month and (unlike previous years) will be paid in full rather than phased. The opposition parties accuse the government of window dressing ahead of a June election. Mrs Thatcher has hinted at such by saying that policies will be put to the electorate ‘very soon’. She also confirmed that Sir Morris Oldfield, Head of MI6 for 6 years in the 1970s, was a homosexual, but claimed there was no evidence that security had been compromised. US Secretary of State, George Shultz, insisted that prospects of an intermediate nuclear deal are ‘very good’. For the second day running, Sri Lankan aircraft raided Tamil basis near Jaffna in the north of the country. There are still curfews in the country’s capital to prevent Tamil unrest. Sri Lanka is near to civil war. More trouble in South Africa, with a series of hand grenade attacks and further black strikes over Soweto evictions. Soon it will be the May 1st anniversary of the introduction of the state of emergency and detention of union leaders. Guinness has been forced to set aside £125million (1/3rd of this year’s profits) to pay for the recent stock exchange irregularities. After today’s warm and sunny day, two more are forecast that should help me get on with The Lady.