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Leaving with Daniel to spend time working on The Rolyat Princess in Horning, taking the new Zodiac RIB on the roof-rack where we bought fittings to store it on the boat davits, fixed the toilet macerator leak and installed a new Webasto heating controller. Dropped Daniel off at Norwich station, bought some prawns for lunch and called home on my new phone.
The gales death toll has risen to 45 in Britain and 85 for the whole of Europe and the BBC were having to make cuts of £75million to survive the limitation of licence fee increases with the BBC Radio Orchestra having to close.
Daniel and I had an early call and we were soon dressed, breakfasted and ready to leave for Norfolk. Daniel was less reluctant to join me this morning, now that I had promised to set him off on the Norwich to Cambridge train later the same day. The journey was all right apart from some trouble with the Zodiac inflatable on the roof-rack. The wind and rain had been parting the cardboard box on the pallet and I had to tie it with a towing cable. Unfortunately, I managed to further injure my bad thumb in the process which was not very nice. The rest of the journey to Heronshaw was O.K. and, upon arrival, I was pleased to see that my Webasto spares had arrived. We then had quite a game unloading the inflatable from the roof rack. Four of us had put it up and two were trying to take it down, with Daniel in one of his weaker moods. Eventually, we had to remove it from the box and take them down individually. Daniel inflated the boat as I tried re-fitting the macerator and found that the pump body was still leaking.
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Up and dressed early for a change and, having sent a press release, I was able to accompany Di to Bedford this morning and Daniel was at home and came too. Today was dry with the wind dropping but it then turned very cold. The storm death toll has now been put at 46 with 7 children killed.
I decided to buy my first transportable cellular telephone which was connected to the Cellnet network so that it can used in the boat, car or elsewhere. Once back, I sorted out my plumbing problems on my own and prepared for my trip to the boat tomorrow and then on the Derek Giles house to have a training meeting with him and Michael Pope on the Town Council standing orders and on to Michael’s to study council finances.
Half a million people are still without electricity and three million trees are down, with 100 of these at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. The trade gap is down to an "acceptable” £1.16 Billion and the stock exchange recovers 30 points after recent falls. Edinburgh ambulancemen are now striking in frustration. In South Africa thousands go on a rampage over the rebel cricket tour.
I was promptly up and dressed today and had completed a press release by the time that Di took Della to school. I therefore decided to go with her to Bedford this morning and Daniel was also home and keen to go. We asked him to drive for practice and this was the first time he had driven outside his formal lessons for a long time. In Bedford, Daniel and I went to Harry Kitchener’s but could not find many interesting boat parts and so we joined Diana for coffee in Debenhams soon after. Had a nice break together which cheered Daniel up as he has been suffering with a nasty cold.
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On a day that that 20 people had died as a direct result of severe gales with human tragedies involved as roofs were ripped off schools and factories and trees and debris crushed cars I was driving to Daventry and back via Northampton with my new inflatable RIB on my roof rack! I first had to pay in some high value cheques and transfer some cash and so I could not leave St Neots until 11am.
I rushed past overturned lorries to Daventry and then drove into the Zodiac warehouse to lash the inflatable onto my roof rack with the Range Rover swaying drunkenly in the open! With her horse-riding cancelled due to power lines down in Offord, I collected Debbie from the Prep as she was blown across the playground. My museum meeting was cancelled giving me time to catch up. My Mum’s doctor and hospital visits went well today
Both Di and I were a little slow to get to sleep, and Di left for the spare bedroom in the end. I then slept all right until woken by her radio/alarm that she had left set. Up in time for breakfast with the others and I officiated as the children went to school. Poor Daniel has a cold and, as the gale force winds rose and rain started, Diana gave in and took them to the bus stop. In view of my failure last night with Red Star, I decided to try to get to Daventry today so that they could upgrade my set whilst I waited. To make the trip worthwhile, I also pressed for my new Inflatable Tender to be ready at the Zodiac distribution depot in Northampton and they agreed and so the trip was on. But first, I had to deal with a mail full of high value cheques and had to arrange for cash to be transferred to the Norfolk company for the Webasto parts. In the end, I opted to pay the largest cheque into Norwich/Peterborough 85-day account which currently pays the highest interest of over 11% but this all took time. I also popped into the shops to get some good rope with which to tie this new inflatable to the roof rack as the severe gale warnings sounded ominous.
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A recovery morning, taking a long shower and washing my hair in some pain due to my scraped and wounded hands from tackling the boat pipe work. A long session reviewing the mail and returning phone calls which led to me inviting Percy Meyer and Sally Guinee across to have an update on their campaigns and to get adverts to subsidise our Focus newsletters.
The afternoon on the telephone organising my boat parts and service with many items underway but one thwarted by Red Star (British Rail) failings. The Finance Meeting of the District Council this evening where the Tories try to reduce the political impact of the Poll tax by £5 by taking £1/2 million from reserves, against the emphatic advice of the Director of Finance. Thatcher has had to climb down at last on the matter of Football I.D. cards and severe gales are expected tomorrow.
I slept in a little and then had a good long shower and hair wash which had been difficult on the boat and I felt much cleaner and fresher as a result. The only thing was that my hands were covered in scrapes and wounds from trying to repair the boat pipe-work and this was quite a painful exercise as a result. Then to my pile of mail. I took it into the conservatory and went through it thoroughly and there was quite a lot of reading of Council papers as well to keep me occupied. I tended the fish and plants and, although Di had looked after them as best she could, they needed a bit of attention. I then started to tackle the task of returning about a dozen phone calls from the messages that had been received on my answering machine.
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