Recovering from my evening lecture whilst picking stones off of my new games lawn site and then drafting and printing a press release about my new book, delivering it by hand to local papers. The children host visitors for the pool and it seems that Louise is Gary’s ex-girlfriend! The SAS raid Petershead prison and free the officer held by the inmates, two Iranians are shot dead in London and 6 Buddhist monks die in Tibet protesting at the hands of the Chinese whilst protesting at occupation
After the excitement and tension of last night’s history talk, I was a little restless in the night and missed some sleep. A bit slow up this morning and had breakfast in my dressing gown and underwear, as we had not decided what to do this morning and I knew not what to wear. Some melon to eat and then wheat flakes. Opted to stay at home this morning and went out to feed the doves and then start stone gathering on the lawn bed. I decided to be methodical and laid out parallel planks and two buckets, then took up the stones between them. A long job and only managed a small fraction of the area. In at 10.30am to make my own coffee, as Di had gone shopping with the girls and Dan was at school. It then occurred to me that I should do a press release for the local papers about my book.
It is no longer a low profile task and I calculated that it would aid the future success of it and also encourage other sources of information to come forward. Moreover, if I am going to stand as the Alliance candidate for Councillor for Little Paxton, I need to get back into the local news again. With this decision, I set about typing some copy into the word processor, then copied biographies, found some personal photos and then went to the archive and copied some local press cuttings from 3 years ago. The technique I was to use was to refer to these, paper by paper, so that they could use this linkage in their coverage, which was meant to ensure they will print the result. Once finished, it was time to take the rest of the family to meet Daniel at the bus stop. Then we drove via St Neots and delivered my press releases by hand to the local offices and representatives of The Tracker, The Hunts Post, The St Neots Weekly News and The Cambridge Evening News. On to Croxton Happy Eater for lunch, then on again to Coton to collect Daniel’s friend Gary Skinner, who is staying the weekend. On the way back, we also collected Debbie’s friend, Clare, from Bydand Lane, as she was to come swimming. Daniel’s first job on coming home was to vacuum out the pool. Paul, Louise and another girl came round and there was some embarrassment as Louise used to be Gary’s girlfriend. Now Daniel has a necklace from her and she has a ring from him! I spent this afternoon first picking up more stones and then working on the front garden lawn and riverside lawn. I spread some lawn top dressing on some of it and autumn toplawn on the rest. This stuff has a chemical for killing worms and leather jackets and phosphate fertilizer for this time of year. Worked until dark, put the ducks away and then came in to write my journal before the TV news. The news this morning was of the SAS style storming of Peterhead Prison in Scotland and the safe recovery of the prison officer held hostage for over 72 hours. Percussion grenades etc were used and the authorities refuse to describe exactly how it was done ‘for security reasons’. Two Iranians were shot dead in London and were outspoken critics of the Ayatollah Khomeini and often spoke at Hyde Park Speakers Corner. They were shot at a flat in Wembley. US naval vessels sail north in the Gulf, amidst reports that Iranian gunboats were attacking oil installations offshore Saudi Arabia. Iranian leaders talk of a long drawn out naval war with America, after the capture of their vessel alleged to be laying mines. Iraqi prisoners have been released by Iran as fellow Islamic followers and were each given a copy of the Koran. 104 year old Catherin Booth, granddaughter of the founder of the Salvation Army, has died today after a lifetimes service in the movement. 6 die in Tibet, as Buddhist monks staged a demonstration calling for independence from China and the forces retaliated with violence. In Fiji, preparations are taking place for Rabuka’s declaration of a Republic, as the armed forces are being built up to reinforce his position. The weatherman has been forecasting rain for some days and still thinks we will get some tonight. I hope it arrives, to water in my lawn dressing, otherwise I will have to use the hose in the morning.