Daniel's former best friend John Tomblin visiting for the weekend
Daniel's former best friend John Tomblin visiting for the weekend

Former best friend of Daniel, David Tomblin, arrived for the weekend on a mild but windy day, brought by his greying father John from Borehamwood who seems to be struggling upon his return to teaching as Debbie hosts her friend Amy for some swimming and we attend the Samuel Jones car boot sale and find a friend of Di struggling to make ends meet after the redundancy of her husband. Three men are charged with the attempted murder of The Northern Ireland Secretary, eight are killed in the latest tragic M6 tragic pile-u, The Iran/Iraq war escalates in the Gulf and the death toll from the 20 Israeli air strikes into The Lebanon this year kill civilians as well as fighters

Slept in until called at 8.00am after our late night and then sat in bed a while and came down to have breakfast in my dressing gown. Then had a scramble to get showered and dressed before the arrival of John Tomblin, who was bringing his son, David, to stay with Daniel for the weekend. The Tomblins used to be neighbours and close friends of ours, but moved away to Borehamwood a few years ago. John was regional organiser for Oxfam and went back to teaching after he had actually moved to be closer to his Oxfam job. Nowadays he is going grey in hair and beard and seems to be struggling with the new pressures and demands of secondary education. He is re-studying chemistry with the Open University. David and Daniel were once best friends and had plenty to say to one another.

I stayed at home to catch up on my journal and watch the penultimate day of the World Athletics Championships, whilst Di went shopping with the girls. Then. at midday, we all went off to Croxton Happy Eater for lunch. The service was slow, as this is the last weekend of the school holidays. More TV this afternoon. The British team is struggling and is still to win their first gold medal. The games are full of rumours and allegations over drug taking today, with so called ‘designer drugs’ developed for athletes to mask their use of other drugs during dope tests. Many of the Eastern European girls look built like men. Our hopes are now on the events tomorrow, where we could succeed in the 1500m, 4x400m relay and outside hopes in the javelin, 5000m as well. I tended the ducks and doves today and caught up on more reading, but achieved very little else. I hope to get going on a range of urgent tasks in the forthcoming week. Daniel and David went to the cinema in Bedford this afternoon to see the film ‘Blind Date’. They aim to sleep on Little Lady at the moorings tonight. Debbie had friend Amy Low round to do some swimming this evening and I had also tended the pool today, to keep it going. We also dropped in at a ‘Car Boot Sale’ in the Little Paxton car park of Samuel Jones. In these events, stallholders set out a range of possessions, or ‘bric-a-brac’, often displayed from their ‘car boots’ and visitors can buy any of these, mainly second hand items, at a modest price. We bought a ‘tuggy tooter’ train for the girls for £1 and a plastic 6-milk-bottle carrier for £3. Sadly, one of the stallholders was a friend of Diana’s and local women, whose husband had lost his job working in the laser industry and could not ‘make ends meet’ financially, which is a poor reflection on the extend of social security benefits. News today is of the three people arrested in Wiltshire under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, now being charged with the attempted conspiracy to murder Northern Ireland Secretary, Tom King. Also of another horrific motorway crash – this time at a contraflow system in heavy rain off the M6 near Lancaster. 8 people were killed and as many injured, as a lorry jack-knifed, crushing a minibus head on. The dead passengers were from a Halifax climbing club and also a woman driver of 2 cars involved also died. In the Gulf War diplomacy, Kuwait has expelled 5 Iranian diplomats and asked the UN to take urgent measures against Iran for firing a missile into Kuwaiti territory. Iraq has also attacked another tanker – the 15th since resumption of the attacks a week ago. In an Israeli raid near the Lebanese part of Sudan, 30 people are reported killed. Although Israel claim the target was the positions of Fatah Guerrillas, reports say civilians, including women and children, were amongst the hospital casualties. Israel has launched more than 20 air raids into Lebanon so far this year. In Madrid, a fireman was trapped fighting a fire, as a floor of a building collapsed. The weather started windy today and showered off and on, but remained mild, with a few sunny spells. Tomorrow is forecast to start sunny, but end with more wind and rain.