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Slow to arise on another day of torrential rain and hot sunny intervals as I caught up with correspondence, went and bought a wreath for Edie Smith’s funeral and then tried to engage Mr Jeeves, the Little Paxton Primary School Headmaster, about the new admission policies and then joined Mike Pope for the parents’ evening before going on to the Parish Council meeting to hear about complaints of playing field vandalism
After the very late night, I was slow to arise and, after breakfast, even slower to dress and get ready. I am actually beginning to anticipate a few days’ holiday and chance to get away from my Council work, finances and history worries. I read the rather large mail and assimilated it and then pondered over Edith Smith’s death notice in the Hunts Post and wondered what to do about her funeral. In the end, I decided to send a wreath and drove into St Neots to organise it and do some financial transactions as well. I got my Building Sty pass book updated, so that I had the information to bring my affairs up to date. Back home for lunch of salad and then this afternoon working on with my financial statement. I realised on completing the sums that my forestry tax relief was in excess of that I could reclaim and so it seems that I have slipped up there. I spoke to Mr Jeeves, the Primary School Headmaster, and pointed out the problems of the new policies of the school admissions and heard the explanations.
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Di spent the whole day at Kimbolton School for Debbie’s summer sports day as I struggled with my April 5th 1988 Financial Summary until Peter Wilmer from Great Staughton arrived to accompany and Percy Meyer, to Cambridge to the Cambridge SLD meeting. The main news was of a North Sea oil terminal tragedy, where Echo Bravo, an older oil rig, exploded killing 1-200 people, with only 60/70 surviving with the tragedy made worse by its effect of reducing by 10% the UK’s oil production
Today was supposed to be a day of no commitments and chance to progress my financial accounts and paperwork and it got off to a reasonably good start in my office. Diana spent the whole day at Kimbolton School for Debbie’s summer sports day, but Debbie came last in her race, but did not seem to be the least put out. It rained and rained today, which was a pity. I dealt with the calculation and addition for my April 5th 1988 Financial Summary and was getting quite het up over the apparent ‘loss’ of £165,000, until I realised that I had been using the calculator wrongly! Once Di was home and I was set to work through the evening, until my peace was rudely shattered by the arrival of Peter Wilmer from Great Staughton at 7.00pm and with his presence, the reminder that I had arranged to take him, with Percy Meyer, to Cambridge to the SLD meeting. I hurriedly changed and we all set off and, during the course of the evening, we heard Alan Beith speak to us as Paddy Ashdown’s opponent for the SLD leader; and I also tried to convince Peter Wilmer to stand as our Party candidate for West Hunts in the May 5th 1989 County Council Elections.
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A tiring but successful day repairing my ARDIC boat heater, identifying the garage door issue with the security system and then servicing the ATCO lawn mower which I used to cut the games lawn before the rain returned. The aftermath condemnations and defence of the SAS ‘execution’ of IRA members in Gibraltar and the Vincennes downing of the civilian airliner rumble on, the Church of England Synod has agreed today to the ordination of women as priests and labour attack the government for underfunding the National Health Service on its 40th birthday
Today was a day of tiring physical activity but rewarding in terms of the outstanding jobs completed. I had gone to bed very late, trying to write up my journal whilst watching TV, and was thus slow to get going this morning. Still made it to breakfast in time for my boiled duck egg and then made a couple of chasing phone calls from my office. I rang Marshalls to talk to them about today’s Range Rover service and then L H Jones to try to get them to come out and repair my ARDIC boat heater. I could not achieve the latter and so set myself the task of effecting a repair. First, I copied and edited the ARDIC handbook – it was in 6 languages, so spread out that it was a confusion to read and I could not cope with it. Then I went out and tried a few things and soon found that the fuel pump was not working. There then followed several hours of messing about with it, until I managed to find some dirty contacts and made it work on reassembly.
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The morning at my desk, hatching up a Little Paxton village development plan and dealing with more calls in Council business, failing to get LG Jones to come and attend to my boat heate problem, hosting a visit from my river-bank man, Mr Larkin, and then two Koi experts from Avenue Fisheries about my new Koi pool. This evening attending a frustrating HND Planning Committee Meeting and then home to my journal again. Thatcher trues to defend the US airliner attack as Ayatollah Khomeini declares an all-out war, rain stops the Test Cricket and Wimbledon tennis after Edberg beat Becker in the man’s singles final and the interest base rate was hiked up another ½ % to 9% fuelling fears of a property crash as the stock market drifts lower too.
Awoken at 7.00am with my morning tea and I thought, in starting to shower and shave at 7.15, that I would be ready by 7.30, but I was 10 mins late for breakfast. Had a large bowl of the new style wheat flakes from Jordans, which may be healthy, but are hard going and a bit tasteless without the added malt. This morning, I worked away at my desk after reading up on today’s newspaper. Then the rest of the time to lunch, composing a letter to the Parish Council Planning Chairman, advocating an exercise to create a local village plan, to give some defence against adverse planning decisions at District level and an appeal. Lunch of salad and the rest of the ham left over from yesterday and then more correspondence and phone calls on Council business. I also tried to get L H Jones to attend here to repair my boat heater, but they are very busy at the moment and so I do not know what will happen. Later, Mr Larkin – the engineer who did my river bank protection – turned up and came to see me after doing a quotation for Cliff Roberts of Mill House.