A welcome day at home, with a leisurely start laying in bed reading as Diana made her way to the doctors for an appointment and then getting some food shopping which was anxiously awaited with the family getting hungry!
Then deflecting a financial sales visit from Council colleague John Davidson before more croquet on the lawn and installing a pump to use wastewater to irrigate the drying Games Lawn during this warm and dry spell.
I was particularly slow to get up this morning and laid in bed reading the many stories in an exciting book of historical shipwrecks, and then the daily newspaper. Down to breakfast and a short time in the conservatory before Diana made her way into St Neots for her appointment with the doctor. His view was that both Diana and I should be treated with a "Duo-pack" when next the trouble occurs in her as we are probably re-infecting each other! She also went shopping and was just back in time for lunch with the family getting hungry and desperate. I worked in my office for a while, clearing the mail and replying to telephone messages and then, after lunch, had a visit from council colleague John Davidson partially about local affairs but also, as it transpired, about trying to interest me in his financial agency. That is a polite way of saying he was trying to sell me life insurance. It is an American custom to sign up representatives and then get them to sell to friends and relatives and it is most disturbing and rather a cheek.
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I managed a couple of games of croquet with the girls and then, this evening, succeeded in rigging up the pump that I brought down from Norfolk and was taking water from our riverside sump to water the games lawn very effectively. Strictly speaking, I suppose that I need an abstraction licence but, as I am intercepting wastewater before it gets into the river, it was a moot point. Daniel was home and in evidence today, taking his car to bits and fitting his loudspeakers as usual. We agreed a fee of £50 each for Daniel and Angela to look after the girls for five days whilst we go to the Bournemouth Party Conference and the Southampton Boat Show. Another warm and dry day and the drought continues which makes me even more pleased about my water pump as the lawns were getting almost white from lack of water.