A late decision in favour of joining Nigel Smith’s party at The Kimbolton Summer Ball as I was serving on the Kimbolton School Society committee after much of the day working on the Hayling View swimming pool and watering the gardens.
Met several people we knew after arriving in our Rolls Royce. Roger Peel, the headmaster, was pleased with the news that Daniel had got into The University of East Anglia and Peter Watson disclosed that he had telephoned to lobby them as well and so it was quite a team effort. Western women and children still cannot leave Iraq yet despite frantic efforts by foreign nations.
It was a duller day today but still warm with no rain. We were a little slow up and then had breakfast together. I worked on the fish, doves and conservatory and hoped that Daniel would do some more gardening for me this morning, but he was not interested. This was even though his friend Steven wanted to come over and help to earn the money. I then found out afterwards that the swimming pool was all cloudy and short of chemicals which did not please me either. I set to work on it which took a couple of hours in total. I had to use the pool vacuum to remove all of the rubbish, then the pool brush to disperse the algae deposit on the tiles. Then I had to backflush the filters and empty the filter baskets before testing for the chemical level and adding enough chlorine to super-chlorinate the pool. Lastly, I switched on the pool boiler and so I judged that it might be swimmable from tomorrow onwards.
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With all this, I did not have much time for my paperwork. Then, after I had made my own lunch, my friend Nigel Smith telephoned and dropped the bombshell that he had two spare tickets for the Kimbolton Summer Ball for this evening and would I accept an invitation to join the party at short notice!!! I then spent much of the afternoon contacting Diana, helping her with the transport for the girls and then we both just managed to hire clothes for the evening to fulfil the black-tie criteria. We felt we ought to accept the invitation because I am on the Kimbolton School Society committee and this was the major social event in the school calendar. We would have booked our own tickets if it were not for the uncertainty as to whether we would be back from holiday of not. We then upset Daniel by insisting that he stay in with the girls tonight and he even nearly refused our offer of some money for a video hire.
The garden is beginning to look like its old self. I had two sprinklers on late last night and again this morning and the lawns are not looking so dead as before. I would really appreciate some rain. There has been no sign of the gardener since we have returned and now I must do the gardening as well as all else until we find a replacement. Our housekeeper, Joan, also told us that she wanted to find a full-time job for financial reasons by the end of the year, but Diana was very pleased because she does not like having her here anymore as it makes her so guilty and she wants to return to doing it herself.
We all got ready for tonight; me in my black dinner suit and tie and Diana in a white full length skirt and shawl and then we drove across in the Rolls Royce to Nigel's to have drinks there before we left for Kimbolton. We expected it to be a very long evening and a late night and we undertook to try and enjoy it if at all possible. We were the last of our party of ten to arrive at Hail Weston House and then we all went to Kimbolton Castle in our separate cars with our Rolls Royce causing quite a stir. There were reception drinks in the courtyard where I spotted quite a large number of people that I knew and then I helped to buy the wine for our table before we sat down to an Hor d'Ouvres of Seafood cocktail and then a main course of mixed meat salad. We finished off with Kiwi-fruit cake and coffee and stayed chatting until after midnight before going to do some dancing to the band. It was after 2.00am before we left and another half hour before we were in bed, absolutely shattered by the exertions.
I had chatted with William Wyatt-Millington, a Tory Councillor, for some time who was trying to persuade our party not to oppose him upon his re-election, but I was non-committal. I spotted John Braga, a former employee of mine who told me that he had just become engaged to be re-married (his wife was tragically killed in a car accident) and I was pleased and wanted Diana to meet his fiancée but I did not find him again. Roger Peel, the headmaster, was pleased with the news that Daniel had got into The University of East Anglia and Peter Watson disclosed that he had telephoned them to lobby them as well and so it was quite a team effort. Western women and children still cannot leave Iraq yet despite frantic efforts by foreign nations.