A little fishing without success at each end of the first day of the fishing season and then most of the day moving earth after the recent dredging and then regulating the swimming pool chemicals and supervising Daniel’s French revision. The Liberal Leader, David Steel, has his colleagues backing for a merger with the SDP, the Treasury Civil Servants talks break down and ‘News on Sunday’, goes into receivership
Late to bed after watching TV and then disturbed further in the early hours when Della started running amok. Groggily awake to my morning tea, then quickly shaved and dressed, so as to get out for half an hour before breakfast to try some fishing. It was the first day of the season today, but the water is too coloured with the recent rain and also the dredging and I did not catch anything. In a bit late for breakfast, but still ate my boiled egg and followed it with cereal. The children off to school – they are getting more and more boisterous lately – then out to the riverside to try moving more earth again. This morning I did the extreme end of the downstream section, which was saturated with the overnight rains.
Quite cold with the wind, but warm when the sun came out. I have been carrying a sore throat and cold for a day or two and found the morning’s work quite shattering. In to make myself a salad lunch from the bare minimum of ingredients and then rested in the lounge watching the TV news. At this point it started raining, but it had finished by the time I was to go out again. This afternoon I moved most of the topsoil pile by the summerhouse and filled in the holes left by the other day’s effort. Daniel came home from school and called me in for a bread-crumbed plaice tea. More trouble with the children over the meal, but in good humour. Di took Debbie to ballet and she brought Fiona back to swim in the pool afterwards. I went through Daniel’s work with him and got him to revise an hour each of French and physics tonight, for his term exams at the end of this week. I worked on again tonight until I was fit to drop, but then tried fishing for an hour with a similar lack of success. Tidied things away, put chlorine powder in the swimming pool, locked & alarmed the house, then settled down to write up my journal. At the same time there was an interesting programme on the TV about the first day ever of broadcasting. At the Liberal leaders meeting today, David Steel got the backing of his colleagues to press the SDP for a party merger. The Civil Servant’s pay talks with the Treasury break down and more action is expected. The newspaper, ‘News on Sunday’, goes into receivership, but may still keep on being printed if a deal can be worked out.