After a lay in a rather rainy autumn day with leaves falling, I spent it totally on financial affairs as I analysed my Thormaid forestry investments and the affect of government grants halving its costs. The huge costs of security for the Brighton Tory conference is an issue as Chancellor Lawson defends his budgetary policy and his Labour Shadow John Smith is recovering from a heart attack in Edinburgh. Lester Piggott is let off the last two years of his tax evasion sentence. 200 more die on the Yugoslavia protests.
After yet another late night, I slept very soundly and Diana let me lay in until 8:30 AM, which was a very nice relaxation. Breakfast of fried eggs and bacon etc, then I got straight down to desk work at the start of the day spent solely on Financial Affairs. I first keyed in my year-to-date income items, printed it all out and then calculated the likely outturn for taxation purposes, which was not too bad. Then, this evening, I studied my forestry accounts and calculated that my 10 year purchase, improvement and planting of Thor made will cost some £128,500. In fact, the gross cost will be £265,500 but planting grants and tax reliefs reduced it tremendously from the £400 per acre to £193 per acre. The thing is, I have no idea of the value of a young plantation in North-East Scotland and I have to find out.
The news this evening is of preparations for the Conservative Party Conference with millions of pounds being spent on security at the Brighton venue. Chancellor Nigel Lawson takes the opportunity of defending his budgetary policy in an eve-of-conference speech. Shadow Chancellor, John Smith, is recovering in an Edinburgh hospital after suffering a heart attack but will make a full recovery. Jockey Lester Piggott is to be released from jail after serving only one of his three year prison sentence. Continual unrest in Algeria and Yugoslavia with 200 said to be dead during protest clashes – the weather was rather rainy today but much milder it is forecast dry for tomorrow and then to rain heavily again for Wednesday. We are well into autumn now and the leaves are falling fast. Had to get some mole traps today