A relaxing end to a fine and warm day, sitting by the River Great Ouse on my riverside lawn after visiting Alconbury Weston for some new riding boots for Debbie who had won a rosette for successfully captaining a team at the school. Successfully collected my Hayter Harrier mower from Ibbetts and had half an hour bowling with Daniel and friends on our newly-cut games lawn. Northern Ireland Republicans mob Thatcher during an unwise ‘walkabout’ in Melbourne after the Aussies had advised against it. 143 white men in South Africa refuse to be conscripted saying they do not want to oppress the blacks and Mathias Rust, the West German who flew was jailed after flying a light plane into Red Square, has been released and repatriated.
As I write this evening, I am sitting on my patio by the still water of the River Ouse. The weather has been warm and fine today, with little or no breeze to worry about. I was out here this morning as well, after breakfast, reading my paper then and avoiding the children for some peace and quiet. It was chillier first thing, when I woke up, and I had to snatch back the covers which had previously been discarded with the warm start to the night. Di took Debbie horse riding this morning and then went on to spend until lunch shopping. I joined her after coffee and we drove up to Alconbury Weston together to get Debbie some more riding boots. She had become hopelessly too big for the old ones, which were not only hurting her, but almost too small to get off. I dropped them into her before lunch, so that she could spend the rest of the day in them. She was pleased to win a rosette today, as Captain of one of the two teams that won the prize at the school. She is always desirous to win anything. This afternoon, I mowed the games lawn and then went through the local papers for last week, taking out the Little Paxton press cuttings. It was my turn then to collect Debbie and I also dropped off at Ibbetts of Great Paxton and managed to pick up my Hater Harrier lawn mower, which was blissfully repaired for tomorrow’s lawn mowing. Tea and then a half hour bowling with Daniel and his friends, before they went off swimming at Ernulf with their girlfriends and I was left to make a couple of calls and attend to things of little consequence. Then to this riverside and my journal, after tending the ducks and doves.
I could hear the hum and see the radio-controlled plane on the common, hear the ducks quacking on the river, until the peace of it all was broken by a hedge trimming machine next door and I went in to watch a programme on the Spanish Armada. It ended up as a slow-running mix of speculation and guesswork. The news this evening is of the IRA taking the initiative with its supporters. First another UDR man was isolated and shot dead in his car in Northern Ireland and then a mob of Republican supporters surrounded Margaret Thatcher during a ‘walkabout’ amongst the streets of Melbourne, separating her from a thin security cordon and causing some worry for the Prime Minister’s safety. Gay Rights activists joined the crowd to add to the problem. It was only the Prime Minister’s personal bodyguard of three/four agents that stayed close to her and she was quite humiliated. There is now a row between British and Australian officials, as the latter say that they had advised the Thatcher party against going on the walkabout for this very reason. In South Africa, 143 young white men have refused to be conscripted into the armed forces, as they do not wish to be part of the oppression of black people. The young West German, Mathias Rust, who was jailed by the Soviet Union for flying a light plane into Red Square and landing, has now been released and is back in his own country.