After watching the Tv news, joining the girls for breakfast and then helping my colleagues at the St Neots recycling campaign event, I drove to Horning and Heronshaw and did some work on the boats before settling down for the evening.
I witnessed the news coming in of further Scud missiles hitting Israel and of the massive US air lift to Tel Aviv of Patriot II anti-missile missiles arriving every 15 minutes in huge Galaxy transport aircraft. By deploying these the US hopes to keep Israel out of the war and thus the Arab coalition together.
I had made arrangements to travel to Heronshaw for a work programme on the garage today and I was up quite early and watched the TV news on the Gulf before I went. In doing this, I witnessed the news coming in of further Scud missiles hitting Israel. The early stories were of the missiles hitting Jerusalem as well as Tel Aviv with the numbers being 8 and 3 respectively; but, after the stories were cleared by the Israeli military censors, the news was limited to just three on Tel Aviv later. Later on, Israeli television showed film of the massive US air lift to Tel Aviv of Patriot II anti-missile missiles arriving every 15 minutes in huge Galaxy transport aircraft. They are operational units from the US German deployments that have come complete with their American operational crew and have been deployed in order to prevent Israel from entering the war and breaking up the alliance of USA and Arab countries.
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Cloud and mist has been hampering the campaign in Western Iraq to seek out and destroy the remaining Scud missiles and, in the meantime, the "Coalition Forces" have been targeting the "Republican Guard" mobile reserve of elite troops in Northern Kuwait. The United States are now admitting a total loss by anti-aircraft fire of 5 war-planes (3 more in the last day) to add to those of the two British, one Italian and Kuwaiti. In return 10 Iraqi planes (5 today) have been claimed in dog fights but this is a small minority of the Iraqi Air Force, the majority of which have either been removed to the North or hidden in hardened bunkers. I stayed watching the TV news, showered and dressed and then joined the girls for breakfast. There was then time for my chores before loading up the Range Rover with items for the "Re-cycling Campaign" event this morning. They included more of my rusty scaffold poles, our month's newspapers, postage stamps and also Christmas Cards for Mrs Hockley who makes use of them. I took all these down to the Priory School location and found myself in good company as the event was well-attended. Unfortunately, the skips for the newspapers were late in arriving and small in number and so the volunteers had to load them later and again the next morning from an untidy pile.
I could not stay to help and had to get off to get my things from home and drive on to Norfolk. I arrived there at about mid-day and un-loaded in the absence of anybody to meet me. This afternoon, I concerned myself with a few things such as putting the new registration numbers on "The Jolly" and bailing it out. It was a nice, sunny afternoon and so I then gave this boat a run down the river, speeding away from the village and then mooring up at Horning staithe to go and buy some newspapers. Once back, I also took a look into the Paxton Princess and saw that it was all right. I ran up the electrical systems, checked the thermometer records to see that things had been all right and I also fitted the two elastic-trimmed pouches by the girls bunks to give them somewhere to put their small personal belongings. This evening, I settled down into the lounge of Heronshaw and read the newspapers and listened to the war news on the radio. A period of relaxation and relief.