A slow start to the day after another late night but some progress working on my financial administration as the office fitters worked less than satisfactory and Diana is delayed by Marshalls not finishing the Range Rover service. As well I enrolled Di in a PEP scheme, I bought £6,000 M&S shares as Britain says it would join EMS and stock exchange soared 100pts.
I tried to get going early again but I had also been going to bed a bit late which does not help. I was expecting the office fitters to come back this morning to do some remedial work and so I got my chores done early and settled into my office to complete the financial summaries. Diana took the Range Rover into Bedford to get an MOT and a list of repairs done as well as making her trip to the hairdresser. Unfortunately, Marshalls seemed to be a bit over-run without their manager and the car was not ready until late and so she was stuck there for the day. I was able to complete the first run of my financial figures before the office fitters arrived and, as they worked, I sat in the kitchen and corrected the draft, adding details from the Financial Times of the security prices and incomes for keying in once they had finished.
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They had come without the full materials and tools to do the job and could not therefore complete it which was annoying. Using a bench saw in my office as well, they also left everything covered in fine layer dust. I made my own salad lunch as I waited to get back in my office. This afternoon, I keyed in the information and then printed out the final figures which show that our investments have made good headway since the summer with Gilt rises more than wiping out share losses. This reminded me that we had not yet created a "PEP" scheme for Diana and so, as the stock exchange was falling, I telephoned our stockbroker in Bedford and bought £6,000-worth of Marks and Spencer shares. This was particularly fortuitous because at the end of the day the Government announced that Britain would be entering Sterling into the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Monetary System from Monday and the Stock Exchange soared 100 points on the strength of this. This evening, I worked further on the FOCUS issues and had the assistance of Peter While to complete the layout of the central section and plan the remainder. The EMS news dominated the headlines tonight with the opposition parties accusing the government of timing the entry at the start of next week's Tory conference for political reasons - political engineering of the economy of the worst possible kind.