With Diana visiting her parents in Cambridge, I stayed at home to clear the riverside path and then use the small mower to tidy the grass by the moorings. In to a late lunch and to watch a very unconvincing Thatcher reporting on her EEC summit meeting to the House of Commons and then to my office this afternoon as Diana hosted her challenging sister-in-law. A good HDC Policy Committee meeting this evening with Labour’s Jim Lomax and I, followed by many Tory back benchers hammering the Tory leadership for lack or preparation and capital cutbacks to pay for the Poll Tax.
The news today was of the Channel Tunnel excavators from Britain and France meeting up under the channel. The service tunnel, the most advanced of the three being dug, is now linked by a two-inch diameter probe for a distance of 100 metres between the full sized drillings, 22.3 kilometres from England and 15.7 kilometres from France.
Diana was going to Cambridge this morning with Della and I thought of joining them but decided that I had too much to do in Horning instead. It was fine, if windy, and so, after breakfast and doing my normal chores, I went down to the riverside with a wheelbarrow, spade and shovel and started clearing away the stones and earth from the riverside path prior to mowing the lawn. I used the small mower and collected the rough grass cuttings for the compost heap. It was a rather overdue job as I had left it a bit too long. I skipped my morning break and had a late lunch as I also wanted to use my new strimmer to trim the bank as well and was afraid that it would start raining. Quite tired afterwards, I then came into a late lunch by which time Diana had got back and could help me.
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This afternoon, I rested a while in front of the TV watching a rather unconvincing performance by Thatcher, reporting on her EEC summit meeting to the House of Commons. Then to my office later to complete my preparations for this evening's council meeting. Di had Chrisula and her girls to visit this afternoon, which was another strain for her. She says that persuading her brother and his wife to move up this way was the worst thing that I had ever done. Chris is so paranoid with superstitions and weird ideas about vegetarianism, the stars and all else and such numerous prejudices delivered as a perpetual prattle which is quite unbearable; and the more so as she never arrives on time and is most reluctant to leave at all. Our tea was late as a result and so it was a rush for me to get out to my meetings tonight.
I might as well not have bothered as, although I had arranged to meet the Labour leader before the HDC Policy Committee meeting, he seemed to have forgotten and was late. The meeting itself was quite a good one. Both Jim Lomax and I kept chiming in with critical comments and questions and then the habit spread to the Tory back benches where other members were not too happy either. I was complaining about the latest cutbacks in planned capital expenditure for the forthcoming year which were numerous and announced verbally by each committee chairman, instead of being submitted as a written report. It was very late by the time the meeting finally ended, and we all went home.
The news today was of the Channel Tunnel excavators from Britain and France meeting up under the channel. The service tunnel, the most advanced of the three being dug, is now linked by a two-inch diameter probe for a distance of 100 metres between the full sized drillings, 22.3 kilometres from England and 15.7 kilometres from France. The CBI has announced the results of the latest economic survey amongst its members who confirm that Britain is in the grips of the worst recession for ten years. Business confidence, orders and production are all reducing in actual as well as real terms. Inspectors from the fraud office are in Polly Peck, the city's latest disaster.