A slow start after a late night transcribing Little Paxton History tapes and then breakfast in peace with the children at school before gathering the family together at the library and taking them to The Bridge Hotel for a nice lunch. Looking at lawnmowers for my new Games Lawn this afternoon and a seafood tea, sharing prawns with Debbie this evening. The local SDP/Liberal Alliance leaders accepted my election plan, poor news about Terry Waite but better news for the Birmingham heart operation babies
Loitered a little late last night in tiredness and exhilaration over finishing my Mrs Ruff/Bunnage interview tapes. Then slept soundly and was unwilling to wake up to my morning tea, particularly as it was Saturday! Last down to breakfast once more, but I did manage to wash my hair as well as shower/shave etc. Why our civilization demands such pedanticism is a mystery to me! Just wheat flakes for breakfast – I turned down the croissants, as the butter and marmalade made them too fattening. I still weigh in at 13st 9/10lbs. At least the absence of the children enables me to read the morning paper at the table in peace. It was the Investors Chronicle and the FT today and I could really have done with the IC yesterday, its publication day, and hope that my new mail order subscription will achieve that when it begins. It contained a few useful tips.
Continued reading after breakfast, and also opened my mail, which was pretty unexciting. Read on until 11.30, when I slipped out to feed the ducks and doves and then locked and alarmed the house for our trip to St Neots. I parked in the Library car park and, whilst the girls did some supermarket shopping, I scanned the newspaper shops for any classic car magazines. Met Daniel in Readwells, the girls in the library and took them all to the Bridge Hotel for lunch, which we enjoyed as a change. It is always quite empty on a Saturday lunchtime, which is surprising as it is no more expensive than the Happy Eater/Little Chef. Home after and then I watched a little International Rugby Union on the TV. A great match that saw England narrowly defeated by 10pts to 9pts, which was a shame, but represented a much improved England performance. Drove out afterwards to look at lawnmowers for my new games lawn. It seems that I need either an Atco or a Webb sit-on cylinder mower to get the best and easiest affect, but I am not sure the area really justifies it – let alone the storage space. Home to tea – a fine dish of prawns that Deborah kept filching as I peeled them! This evening, Di did not want to go out and so I worked in my office, copying and labelling master tapes and disks of my interviews. Later, I started printing the files out and writing up my journal, to fill in the time of this long job. I spoke to Percy Meyer, the St Neots SDP Chairman (who had conferred with Michael Pope, his opposite number in the Liberal Party). They concurred entirely with my feelings over standing as an Alliance candidate in the present circumstances, would support me as an Independent, and hope that I would join them if and when an ‘Alliance’ Party gets off the ground. The news tonight was of David Steel and Robert Maclennan trying hard to talk up the chances of a successful merger, whilst the six-man negotiating team beavered against time and all odds to secure a settlement. Stories coming out of the Middle East say that Terry Waite will not be released before November at least, to ‘further embarrass President Reagan’. He was supposed to be the envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but these fanatics seem to have overlooked that. The hole-in-the-heart baby, Matthew Collier, is ‘winning his battle for life’, but is still very seriously ill. Now time and care has to be found for all of the other babies on the Birmingham Hospital waiting list.