Up early and out for the drive to Norfolk on New Year's Eve to visit the Broads Authority and District Council offices to see latest copies of the Local Plan to prepare the ground for the Councillors’ Heronshaw site visit.
Home to a grumpy Diana who had declined to join me and to see Michael Pope’s resignation letter from Town and District Councils which was a setback for my own retirement plans. I accepted the £500 for Sundance from Mr Drake today and the FT Index was up to very nearly 1500
Diana called me up at 7.00am by arrangement but it was still after 8.00am by the time I could get ready to leave for Norfolk. The weather was not too unpleasant - just cold with a slight breeze - and I made good progress in slight traffic along the A45 past Cambridge. There do not seem to be too many people at work this week, even on days that are not officially Bank Holidays. I drove straight into the centre of Norwich to the offices of the Broadland District Council and there asked to see the latest copy of their Local Plan for Broads development. Then along to the offices of the Broads Authority in Colgate Street to do much the same thing there before driving on to Heronshaw. My task was to prepare the property ahead of the Broads Authority Planning Committee site visit on Friday.
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I moved the Paxton Princess on to the river front, cleared the gravelled area of tubs etc and moved them on to the lawn that is to become the new boat dock. The aim was to both clear as much space as possible for the cars and to present the old place in the right way to get their support on the planning application. Old Jack was visiting whilst I was there and he took away one of my outboard motors for servicing which will be very useful. Having left Horning for home, I stopped off in Wroxham to get my favourite lunch of double fried plaice - the best that you can get comes from the Wroxham Fish and Chip Shop - and then stopped at the Drive-Thru MacDonalds for a milk shake as well. Home before tea and there found Diana rather grumpy. It seems that she was jealous of me being able to drive out for the day without a care in the world whilst she had to content herself with the housework. This was upsetting to me as I was quite content to take her and the girls with me but could not get her to come! Women can be so difficult to understand sometimes.
In my mail today was a copy of a press release from Michael making known his resignation from Town and District Councils to all the world before doing this to his colleagues. This is a pity because it means that the Tories are given such warning that they can get up a good campaign whereas otherwise we could have built up a successor and got him or her elected almost unopposed. I called a few of my colleagues and suggested that, whilst we are all very upset with him for the way in which he has done this, we should nevertheless restrict our public comments to those of praise as a tribute to his work over the years. Unfortunately, all this means that I must delay my own retirement from local affairs otherwise the local Liberal Democrat organisation would be fit to collapse.
Mr Drake came round with the cheque for £500 and so Sundance is now his. In the city today, share prices leapt ahead for no obvious reason as the last fling to 1991 so that the FT Index was very nearly at 1500. The pound slipped back against the German Mark but was saved from further pressure by the very thin trading. The Tories are sticking to their guns as far as economic policy is concerned. The new year will see the real battle of Sterling being fought. The New Year's Honours List published today has C.B.E.'s for Terry Waite and the other released U.K. Hostages and more sportsmen than usual but there are still sufficient political honours to show that John Major would still use patronage as Thatcher would, so that we would be best without this divisive system.