After repairing our rotavator and working all day, the games lawn site was level and finished and, with Diana making progress with her slimming, she treated herself to a new wardrobe and Debbie and Amy enjoyed their ballet lessons. Neil Kinnock presides over a turbulent Labour Conference but carries the day for reforms and more details of the Colombian mudslide emerge. Fiji is destined to continue its racially-inspired conflict despite HM The Queen supporting the Governor General
Up several times in the night, after the pints of liquid drunk yesterday evening (to restore my fluid levels after the work outside) found their way out again, in several visits to the toilet. Sound asleep, however, when woken with my morning tea and was soon shaved and dressed ready for my breakfast of boiled egg with buttered toast fingers. Straight out afterwards to resume the good work on the games lawn. Helped Pete get started, topped up the rotavator gearbox and I manned the machine, as Pete dug out the many and various clods of clay and the contrasting stones. The weather was fine and calm again, but the high pressure has passed its peak of 1027mb and is now starting to decline slowly. Fine enough for our task and a good chance to finish the job off.
Got on well until late morning and then the fan belt came off the rotavator and was obviously worn and needed replacement. Took 1 ½ hours and two visits to St Neots for the right sized fan belt before it was fixed. I left Pete to operate the repaired machine and went inside to make myself a salad lunch with honey ham, as Di had gone shopping to Cambridge today. She bought several dresses, a coat and two pairs of shoes, as she was under 10 stone this morning again and so had free run of my credit card. This afternoon Pete and I finally finished the games lawn bed and I hung around admiring our handiwork for a while. In to get changed and soon teatime. Debbie had Amy round to get ready for ballet lessons together and Amy had gone over with Di to see her classroom and collect her. Tonight Debbie and Dan both worked at their ‘prep’, with Deb more keen and attentive, as usual, but at least Daniel makes some attempt. He is trying to persuade me to buy a new TV, as the old one is broken. The news today is of the Labour Party Conference, where leader, Neil Kinnock, gave a 60 minute speech outlining the process of planned policy review and condemning his party opponents who want to stay with the traditional socialist policies. There would be no betrayal of principles, but no flinching from the review either. In respect of nuclear policy, he seemed to please both sides. Despite some heckling, he carried the conference overwhelmingly with him. The Hungerford killing inquest ends with the police arms specialists giving an account of the last minutes before Ryan killed himself with his last bullet. Now a memorial service for the 68 victims will be held on October 8th and hopefully some memories will be put to rest. Meanwhile, Miami in Florida has passed a law to allow people to carry concealed weapons by paying $146 and taking a short firearms course, which is crazy. BBC & ITV television services have agreed to tighten up monitoring and exclusion of gratuitous sex and violence on TV. In particular, imported material is to be more closely watched and ITV will be actually cutting back US material from 5 ½ hours to 4 hours a week. After the Colombian mud slide, 180 bodies have been recovered for a total of 500 people missing. Fear of further mud slides are keeping rescue efforts at bay, but few further survivors are now expected. In South Africa, 60 people have been killed by storms and floods and Durban is said to be virtually cut off. Iraq has completed its 6th day of attacks on Iranian oil tankers and terminals. The British mine sweepers are on station within the Gulf and have marked the first mine. The Queen has issued a strong statement of support for the Fiji Governor General and implied condemnation of Colonel Rabuka. The Governor General, who is a major Fijian Chief, will not give up without a fight and many may follow him. The printing of ‘Spycatcher’ is underway in Australia in a race against time, as the Thatcher government tries to get another appeal heard within the 3 week publication date to stop it. More fine weather forecast.