- Details
After spending a little time with my daughters, studying for their exams, I collected Sally and, with Percy and our Labour colleagues, orchestrated a very full and long HDC Council Meeting, where we worked well together to ask cascades of awkward questions and then combined to force a number of recorded votes about the Tories cuts and deferments to the council's spending programmes.
This evening, Michael Hezeltine announced his candidature for the Tory party leadership and with it the main plank of his policy which was to undertake a fundamental review of the Poll Tax, the subject of my motion!
It was always going to be a very long day today and it certainly ended up that way. I tried to spend a little time with my daughters as Debbie was in the middle of exams this week and Della was also working hard and progressing with her schoolwork for her Kimbolton School entry exams next February. There were the normal chores to do with the conservatory needing watering (having been neglected of late). For most of the time, however, I was writing my council speeches and trying to get my papers as fully prepared as possible for the long meeting ahead. Lunch and then it was time to go and collect Sally and get to Pathfinder House.
** "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **
- Details
A long meeting with Percy and Sally for five hours with breaks for coffee, then for tea and sandwiches agreeing an active strategy for tomorrow's council meeting with lots of questions and points to press the Conservatives about and then a call to the Labour leader to make sure that his members would be there to see it through.
This evening to a Village Hall maintenance meeting before home to watch Sir Geoffrey Howe's statement in the House of Commons and this was a very damning indictment of Thatcher's style of government and her intransigence with respect to European development. Another telephone call from Ian James means that I will have to chair an ONSITE board meeting this week. I may not have made a very good decision to become involved with them.
A better night but was still a little sleepless and then slow to wake up this morning to get started on the things that I had to do. Breakfast was therefore a little late and then I had to wade through quite a lot of mail. There was another long planning document from the district council which I needed time to study. In the time left before Percy and Sally arrived at 9.30am, I could only do my morning chores and clear up my office ready for the meeting. We then met for five hours with breaks for coffee and then for tea and sandwiches and agreed an active strategy for tomorrow's council meeting with lots of questions and points to press the Conservatives about. I then contacted the Labour leader and made sure he realised that we were planning an active and late session so that his members would be there to see it through. It fell to me to collect Della from school as Diana had to go and get Debbie and take her to see the doctor this afternoon. She had been suffering with pains in her knees which have been diagnosed as growing pains but that I think they may be related to her long-distance horse-riding. In any event, she is not to worry about them and can carry on sports and games if the pain allows.
** "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **
- Details
Another unsettled night in warmer weather heralded a busy morning catching up with mail, returning phone calls and preparing for meetings and then the evening attending a committee meeting of the Kimbolton School Society which noted how well and lucrative the fireworks display was but got bogged down on the Christmas Fair details. A great plan was agreed for a "Murder in the Castle" which will be a select dress dinner for forty or so parents joined by ten actors.
Sir Geoffrey Howe is to address the Commons tomorrow and Tory leadership contender, Hazeltine is flying back from Germany to consider whether to openly stand for the party leadership
Did not have a particularly good night, even though I was back in my own bed again. The weather is so mild at the moment that I have trouble attaining the right temperature and my bed is so much harder than that at Heronshaw. The normal morning chores; fish, doves and plants were OK but the de-humidifier in the classic car garage fills up remarkably quickly and was no longer in action as a result. Di went shopping in St Neots this morning and so I had a bit of a rush to prepare some financial transactions for her to do for me whilst she was there. I then spent most of the day on my political council work and on returning telephone calls and messages. I was contacting the press and radio media to whip up interest in the full district council meeting this coming Wednesday and then being interviewed about it for the broadcast news.
** "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **
- Details
After sleeping lightly last night, due to the mildness of the weather, I was marvelling today at the richness of the local wildlife and nature whilst packing up to go and leaving things safely for my absence. En route, I stopped for the 11am Cenotaph commemorative silence remembering my father who died at this time of year from skin cancer probably provoked by his war-time African posting. Once home, I collected Debbie from her horse-riding in Staughton and then relaxed watching TV and reading to recover from my efforts.
The top story is of the leadership struggle in the Conservative Party with their strange culture precluding an open contest as they line up proxy choices. Chancellor Major giving "steady as she goes" interviews as the economic storm waves break around him and his daughter Elizabeth starts her “animal husbandry training" (mucking out horses) at Newmarket, having been denied a pony in earlier life.
I was early awake again on - this time at 6.45am - and used the last of the milk and meagre food supplies that I had brought for a modest breakfast. As I sat and watched Ropes Hill Dyke awake, I was conscious of just how many different types of birds and animals live there. Swimming up the dyke; the grebes, ducks, geese, moorhens and coots and then the swans with a rarer black swan joining in the welcome for once. Overhead the terns, gulls and occasional heron and then, once I was out and working, the amazingly friendly robin and wren that flit about and follow man here as if our movements are generating morsels of food. These birds are much tamer than back in Cambridgeshire. I wish I had more time to row, watch and fish on such a morning as this which is very mild and still for the time of year. I slept lightly last night as I was too warm with the sharp change in the weather.
** "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **