The long 200-mile journey in the Range Rover from Little Paxton to Blackpool, dropping off the Rolls-Royce in Bedford for its service and arriving after a four hour journey to find the Pembroke Four-Star Hotel had mishandled our booking but, after a two-hour wait when the girls swam in the pool, we were eventually given a suite, which was satisfactory. Daniel and I took a walk along the Front and then, the children having tea, Diane and I went off for a nice meal in the Admiral Hotel restaurant afterwards. An Italian ship loaded with hazardous chemical waste was prevented from landing by British harbour masters today and several IRA men are killed in Ulster in a shoot to kill operation in a SAS ambush.
I had stayed up late last night, getting ready for our holiday trip which was starting today. Di was awake first this morning and brought me a cup of tea at 6:40am and, after a bowl of cornflakes each, the last-minute scramble took place as we loaded up the Range Rover and locked up the house ready to go. I dropped off the Rolls-Royce to Alec Norman of Bedford to get it serviced whilst we go on holiday and Di drove the Range Rover and family to Alec Norman to pick me up and we started off for Blackpool. We managed the long journey with two stops of 45mins each for morning coffee and lunch and so even that we had left 8:20am, we only arrived about 2pm. The journey must have taken about four hours as the distance was more than 200 miles. We arrived at the Pembroke four-star hotel but found the reception sadly lacking. There was firstly an argument over whether 16-year-olds were children or adults (and the girl receptionist was quite wrong has own brochures would plainly show) and then they had not given us rooms that had communicating doors in between. We had asked for ‘adjoining’ and they had interpreted this as ‘adjacent ‘and we wanted what they called ‘interconnecting ‘. After a two hour wait, we got a suite given to us that had more room and then, after two more hours, we got the third children’s bed that we had been waiting for. The girls swam in the pool this afternoon and Daniel and I hung around, but I did at least manage to phone Kimbolton School and arranged to see Mr Peel, the headmaster, with Daniel late on Thursday afternoon.
I also heard of a bonus with the Rolls-Royce; it seems that it only requires a minor rather than a major service and so there will be money saved there. The children went for tea and that left Di and me with the chance to have our dinner together afterwards. In the meantime, I wrote up my journal and read my newspaper as, for once, I had bought an Independent. As Diana washed her hair, Daniel and I went for a walk along the promenade. It was cool, windy and rain spitting in the place look rather forbidding, jaded and down on its uppers, which was a shame. At least we found a shop again to buy some postcards which enabled Di, Daniel and Debbie to write them up ready to post in the morning. Later this evening, I took Di for a nice meal in the Admiral hotel restaurant, which was nicely served and presented. After this I sat with the window open and watched the TV news. The main story is of the ship from Italy loaded with hazardous chemical waste trying to berth in Britain (now dubbed the waste tip of Europe) and being rebuffed by several harbour masters. Following more debate and controversy over low flying displays of military aircraft, the organisers of the Farnborough Air Display next week refused to change their plans. In Ulster, the SAS ambush and kill several IRA men in what seems to be a return to the ‘shoot to kill’ policy.