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Diana woke me up at 7.00am after an early night on a cold, but not freezing, day which was dull and dingy. Poor Michael Pope was ill again but Percy Meyer came round and together we planned most of the general stories for our next FOCUS with local ones to follow for each ward.
Then with Di and the girls to the saddlers for some items for Sundance and home after a lunch out to a deserted Daniel and then three lady friends of Diana with eight children made the place quite busy! Norman Fowler quietly resigned his cabinet post today and got a Knighthood for his discretion, but Kenneth Clarke is criticised by The Association of Chief Ambulance Officers for undervaluing Ambulancemen as being ‘just drivers’.
We went to bed quite early yesterday and so I was not surprised when Diana woke me up at 7.00am this morning. I was still slow to get to breakfast at 8.00am and the light was barely enough to have the curtains open and the electric light off as we looked out on the day from the breakfast table. I was expecting Michael Pope at 9.00am and others to come but his mother telephoned to say that he was ill with the migraine again. She is trying to get him "homeopathic" treatment which evidently helped an acquaintance of hers and I think that they should try anything as the condition is very debilitating. Percy Meyer came round and together we planned most of the general stories for our next FOCUS; namely our re-cycling campaign, the ambulancemen's dispute, the lack of investment in British Rail, the message from the Churches on poverty and the County Council's decision to cut funds from the implementation of the national Curriculum.
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Up early on a fine if quite cold day to take Debbie to the stabvles and collect Sundance for the Brampton Farm pony cub event. Away after some problems boxing the pony and to arrive after getting lost a while for a quite disorganised but useful day. Once back home, I edited the FOCUS copy with Derek Giles to add local Eaton Socon issues.
The first IRA attack of 1990 in which an extreme Protestant taxi-driver was killed by a car-bomb in his taxi as his 16 year-old daughter sitting beside him escaped with minor injuries, The Russians report rioting for three days by many of their citizens along 85 miles of the Azerbaijan/Iran border. A new Vatican envoy, "a Latin American specialist”, has been sent to Panama to help with the negotiations on the future of former President Noriega
All up early on a fine if quite cold day to get ready for Debbie's horse-riding event. At least we were reasonably-well prepared and, by 8.30am, Debbie and I had arrived at the riding stables. I spent some time fitting my lights to the horse-trailer (as its own were not properly working) and left Debbie to groom Sundance. Then we had the game of getting him into the trailer. Unfortunately, our ruse of feeding him in there did not work because we were too slow in closing the tail-gate up and he backed out frightened again. Eventually, I got him in by parking up close to a wall so that he had nowhere to go. We got to the venue, a farm in Brampton, after getting lost for a while to find the day a rather confused sequence of events. I entered Debbie for just about everything but first she lost her way around the course, and then Sundance took it into his head to go racing off with her. This led to the advice and conclusion that we are going to need a "Pelham Bit", which exercises more control.
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As Di dropped Debbie off at the stables and went shopping at Tesco, I did my chores on a still, if chilly, morning with the weather forecast tonight being 3degF and slight fog; and then took all of the rest of the morning to complete my journal entries for the previous day, month and decade. A break to tend my father’s grave and check that we could ‘box’ Sundance ready for tomorrow and back to type up a FOCUS questionnaire for Eaton Socon.
International praise for Gorbachev with even Thatcher calling him "A good partner in Peace" and suggesting that he should take credit for the Eastern European reforms. Czech President, Vaclav Havel announced an amnesty for 30,000 prisoners guilty of non-violent crimes The huge oil slick off the Moroccan coast is causing extreme environmental concern. Kenneth Clarke, pronounces himself "very pessimistic" of any settlement moves in the Ambulance dispute
This first day of the new year was spent quite quietly. Diana brought us our drinks and there was then the customary invasion of the girls until I could wriggle free of them. Diana went to Bar Hill today to see her mother and used the opportunity to go to the Tesco supermarket there as well, which is open on the Bank Holiday. In fact, she found very few people there and I think that is a good thing as shops should not be open anyway. On the way, she dropped off Debbie at the riding stables and Daniel at his friend Gary's house in Coton. Della just tagged along. I tended my doves, fish and conservatory plants on what was quite a still day, if a bit chilly. Then I sat at my computer and completed my journal entries for the previous day, month and decade and found the news of the past quite interesting. This took me until quite late in the morning after which I only had time to make myself a cup of coffee before lunch.
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