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Starting the day by checking on Daniel’s homework and learning that he was volunteering in the Oxfam shop today. Starting files for my District Council business, hosting a photocopier repair engineer and then taking Debbie horse-riding with her friend Amy joining us to watch. This evening attending a Southoe parish council meeting where the chairman had failed to turn up! Roy Jenkins leads a House of Lords rebellion over academic freedom in universities, latest Belfast explosion was from a gas leak and unemployment in Britain has dropped below 2 ½ million for the first time
Awoke early this morning and was showered and shaved well before breakfast for once. I walked across to see Daniel and checked what schoolwork he had done last night and he seems to be diligent at the moment. He was allowed to stay home from school today, being a CCF parade day (the volunteer cadet school activity). He went along to Oxfam in St Neots this afternoon, as usual, and did his voluntary work, which is in lieu. I did some more reading this morning and then emptied a filing trolley full of security alarm equipment and put filing folders in there to take my Council work. Lunch with the family. I also made final arrangements for a Cambs Constabulary visit in June and also wrote a few more letters on Council business. Carried on in this vein this afternoon and took a few more phone calls. The photocopier repair engineer called, but could not fix it and had to take it away.
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Consulting the independent district councillor, Bertie James, prior to my first Huntingdonshire District Council meeting where the committee selections were being made and was quite relieved to get places on the environmental services and economic development committees during a very ceremonial and choreographed annual meeting. Home to mow the lawn and then off to a St Neots Museum committee meeting who had yet to secure a building for their project. 20 new Cambridgeshire police are approved arousing some hope for my village policeman bid. The US claim the Russians have had a missile factory explosion and three more people at BBC broadcasting House catch Legionnaires’ disease.
Another slow start to the day, as these evening and other meetings are quite tiring. I paced about for a while after breakfast, trying to decide how to exert influence on the HDC committee selection meeting and finally decided to telephone the St Ives Independent, Bertie James. I’m glad I did, because he was very pleased at my election, particularly as I had displaced Jeanette Green, who had been as unpopular on the St Ivo Recreation Committee as she had been in Little Paxton and Southoe! He suggested that I sat next to him at the meeting. I went early to Pathfinder House, got my photograph taken for the Councillors leaflet and had a look around the printing department. Then I hung around in the Council Chamber, grabbing a convenient seat and introducing myself to as many people as possible (virtually all Tories of course). They were all quite friendly and I think, in truth, they welcome somebody else who might put some zest into the thing. All of the business is rehearsed in the Tory Group pre-meeting and they just say their lines in the real thing.
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A rather slow start to the day and then soon time to leave my London meeting at Queen Anne Street for which the journey went well until I ran into the Muslim feast day at the Regents Park Temple. Much talk of the new budget changes that will affect forestry in the flow country and then quite hot driving home as the Rolls-Royce Corniche air-conditioning was not working. Collecting Mike Pope, I then drove to Glisson Road in Cambridge for a meeting with John Matthewman for my election return information before back to St Neots for a district meeting and then home to my journal and to hear news of Chancellor Lawson’s interest rate cut and of Legionnaires’ disease striking BBC broadcasting House.
Rather tired when I was called at the normal time this morning and thus a bit slow to get going as a result. I came down to breakfast in my dressing gown and then went up to wash, shave and dress after. This was a pity, as I had intended to get down to work as soon as possible in my office this morning and to complete a full budget for my District Council Election Return. In the end I managed to do this, but I left a little late for my London meeting and was always going to be later still, as I met traffic congestion. My meeting was at Fountain Forestry at Queen Anne Street. I took the Rolls Royce Corniche, as Diana needed the Range Rover to go to Bedford today. A pleasant trip, until I approached London itself. The problem then was an important Muslim fundamental feast/prayer date and the Great London Temple (at Regents Park) was so congested it made me ½ hour late.
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Start of Daniel’s GCSE Exams – Starting the day anxious to know how well prepared Daniel was for his first GCSE French oral exam and then catching up on yesterday’s journal before compiling and filing my press cuttings and accepting my first invitations as a local councilor. A broadcasting commission will oversee British television, a British relief agency couple and their children die in a Sudan bombing incident and the UK stock exchange declines over financial policy worries
Rather tired this morning and was reluctant to get up and about the day. Was still earlier to my breakfast than normal, as I was anxious to see Daniel and ask how prepared he was for his first GCSE exam today. It is a French oral comprehension test, of the type at which he did badly in his mock GCSE exam, but then his hearing was in difficulty, but is now improved. Di took them to the bus stop to ensure that they caught the bus all right. I went to my office and caught up on yesterday’s journal, which had taken second place to the letter writing yesterday evening. The weather was cooler still today and the wind even more fresh, so that the house missed the central heating, which we have now switched off for the summer. Then the whole day working on the job of taking press cuttings from the last two week’s papers and entering them, first into my scrapbook of Little Paxton, and then in my personal career cuttings book, those items that referred to me personally.