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After time admiring my newly turved games lawn, I impress in my selection interview for the District Council candidature with local SDP/Liberal Alliance Chairman Percy Meyer and then lunch with the family at the Croxton Happy Eater before some Christmas shopping. Garry Kasparov wins the final game of the series and thus retains his World Chess Championsip title against Anatoly Karpov as more riots take place this time in Jerusalem and Britain tells the UN that the Israelis have used excessive force in quelling unrest in the Gaza Strip
Diana had decided that today was the day to let us all lay in and so we slept on and only got up at 8.00am. Then an early postman caught out Diana who set off the alarm by accident when rushing to open up the door. Breakfast for all of us, except Daniel, who was still sleeping, then he scrambled down to join us afterwards. I sat around in my pyjamas for a while, reading both Investors Chronicle and the weekend FT, until I began to run out of time. The powerful temptation was to keep looking out of the window at our games lawn turf, which has made quite a difference to the view. Closer up, it is not perfectly level and the turves and joins are quite muddy, but it will improve tremendously with time. A rush to get hair washed, shaved and dressed for the drive to town and my appointment with the SDP/Liberal meeting. It was the selection and adoption meeting for the Huntingdon District Council Alliance candidates and my stint was from 11.00 until midday. I was shown almost straight in and interviewed by the Cambridge Regional Chairman of the SDP and Liberal parties, Percy Meyer, as the St Neots District Alliance Chairman and a lady also representing the Liberals with them.
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Starting the day working Pete and Daniel to finish laying turves on the games lawn until Nigel visited for a chat about property investments which he feels will reduce further in value and I appear in two more local papers this week about ‘what local personalities are doing on Boxing Day’! Flights from The London Dockland Airport are suspended due to lack of air traffic controller cover after two near misses, the Israelis have been brutal within the Gaza Strip to quell demonstrations, unrest in South Korea after protesters seize a ballot box stuffed with forged papers
Slept well after a late night, but was not too tired when I woke up this morning. Spent time over breakfast persuading Daniel that he should help with the turf laying and then I decided to help both him and Pete get the job done. I donned an older pair of jeans and jumper, wellington boots and rubber gloves and proceeded to drive both Pete and Daniel along at a far greater pace of work – probably twice or three times the rate. By mid-morning we had done a quarter of the area remaining and so had a rest and drink. Then Daniel and I ‘stacked up’ Pete with turves and went to prepare our lunch ((we were fetching the turves from Willow Close and Pete was laying them). The weather was warm, still, and dry today, which aided our task, but the ground and turves were still very soggy. The problem was that the damp turves had been deeply stacked and were deforming and sticking together the longer they were left. We had to finish the task today.
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Viewing 143 acres of arable and meadowland in Great Paxton after getting Daniel and Pete going on resuming laying the Games Lawn Turf and then offering money to Godmanchester to restore the old Recreation Ground before late to take Debbie for her Christmas Party riding party and games and phoning my dad to help him with his tax liability for his valuable index-linked pension. The Poll Tax Bill introduced by Secretary of State Nicholas Ridley, passed second reading today with 35 Tories voting against or abstaining in defiance of Thatcher, a Consultant Obstetrician is ‘in despair at the way the NHS is going’ after they cannot any longer guarantee the safety of mothers in labour or their babies without resources and the BBC is still hog-tied by the government injunction
Slept well enough last night and we had our slight lay in that seems to be a feature of the school holidays. I went through my full routine that made me slightly late for a breakfast of boiled duck egg and buttered toast fingers. My next task was to get Daniel out there helping Pete to lay the turves. He did so with some reluctance, but worked in two sessions today, so that they had laid half of the entire area by dusk. Pete takes so long when on his own and really shows up just how unfit he really is. Even so, it is a rotten and messy job. The large 2/3 sq yd turves are heavy and muddy, as a result of all of the rain we are getting. It poured again today and the river is coming up again. After getting this good work started, I then set off to rendezvous with Peter Lewis of Ekins at Manor Farm, Little Paxton. We walked around 143 acres, 100 acres down to arable and the rest meadowland.
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Taking delivery and supervising the laying the turf for the new Games Lawn until dusk, selling my Daimler and trying to work at my desk transcribing more history interview tapes as I appeared in The Trader newspaper today ahead of my Paxton District Council Ward adoption meeting. I also correctly sold Ladbrokes and Courtaulds shares into a strengthening market before they fell later. The Tories inadequately fund NHS needs with a poor rise in funds, start proposing the Poll Tax against protests from both sides of the House
An unsettled night, ending up by thinking of our problem of the nearby houseboat and the obstruction they continually create with their car outside our house. Then awake early and played with Diana until it was time to get up. For once the children had no need to go to school and we could take a relaxed view of the timing of breakfast. Showered and ready with the others for the meal, but only wheat flakes to eat. It was raining this morning, and hard at that, and I was concerned that we would not be able to get our turf today. I phoned the supplier and the turf had been stripped in the dry yesterday and ‘sheeted’ for the night against the rain, which was good. They were still planning to deliver the turves in late morning and so I called round the telephone weather reports to see what was in store for us. Then I called Pete and got him over, as we were in business. In the end, it stayed mostly dry for the rest of the day, but the lawn bed was pretty soaking, which made the surface difficult, even with planks. My other project for this morning was the sale of my Daimler. I had to call Marshalls of Cambridge several times and, in the end, Martin Hamblin came over to collect it and gave me a cheque for £28,500, just £1000 less than I paid.