Our first day at home getting my financial papers in initial order so as to be able to pay in cheques etc, settle bills and balance our investment accounts and then going to St Neots to implement them. I visit to Ivy Bunnage by bicycle.
The shocking news this morning was of the attempted ousting of Michael Gorbachev from the Presidency of the Soviet Union by his deputy and other hard-line members of the Soviet regime.
It was strange being back in our own double bed and I was up a couple of times in the night getting comfortable. Diana started us early for the day and we were soon up and dressed. My task was to get my financial papers in initial order so as to be able to pay in cheques etc, settle bills and balance our investment accounts. The shocking news this morning was of the attempted ousting of Michael Gorbachev from the Presidency of the Soviet Union by his deputy and other hard-line members of the Soviet regime.
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The day progresses with world-wide financial panic at the prospect of the world returning to East-West friction and ends with tanks and other military vehicles on the streets of East European capitals attempting to forestall a public outcry. Opposition in Russia is centring around Boris Yeltzin who is barricaded in his Russian parliament building and has at least one elite tank brigade supporting his position. The trouble is that many citizens are content to suffer autocracy as the means of solving the economic and food problems. I took Diana to St Neots today, visiting the building societies for money and the latest interest rates and doing a number of other urgent chores. We had coffee and lunch in the new Barratts eating place and I was very impressed. Home in late morning and then to have a long chat with the gardener who has managed well in our absence. I settled his money and gave him a good bonus to reflect this.
I then took a cycle ride to visit another old lady, Ivy Bunnage, the oldest village resident who was concerned about the gravel pit road banks and also enjoys my company. For the rest of the day, I worked on my paperwork but there was much left to do by the time I went into the lounge with the lap-top computer to update my journal. The news is even more full of the Soviet crisis and everybody is concerned. In my view they should have showed that concern and support for Gorbechev earlier, instead of the dissident states seeking succession and the British and American governments should not have stopped international moves to encourage reform with economic aid.