A Cambridge visit with our daughters as well as meetings galore, dropping off the Focus copy, frenetically updated before leaving, and then having coffee on arrival but to time for lunch.
A Glisson Road election campaign meeting and then, after Di helped at Little Paxton School, Chrisula arrived with her girls to use the pool and did not want to go; resulting in my dinner being too late to eat before my HDC Policy Committee in the evening.
I agreed with Daniel and Steven Bloom that we would try to bring the Paxton Princess round during the next couple of day. The national news lately has been of a bank failure and worsening industrial and employment statistics.
By the time I was awake at 7.15am, there were already half a dozen telephone calls on the answering machine, with the latest suggestions and corrections for the FOCUS copy. They were much happier with the revised format and the number of corrections had dwindled to just a few. I was able to implement these and also produce the "Sorry we missed You" and poster copy and to fill in all of the order forms before I left for Cambridge, but it was a close-run thing. In between times, I also ate breakfast as well! We took Daniel and Debbie with us for the trip and met Di's parents for coffee, dropping off the copy for printing at Roman Znajek's house on the way. I was only able to stay for a little while as I had a meeting of the parliamentary campaign at Glisson Road at 10.15am and had already telephoned ahead to say that I was going to be late, and it was 10.45am before I could get there. The meeting went well, and we discussed the theme of the campaign which was to be locally based and highlighting Sue Suttons youth and vigour against the ageing and stodgy incumbent.
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I met the family back at the car at 12.30pm and we had a sandwich lunch as we drove home to Paxton. Diana had agreed to go in and help Mrs Cottam prepare for the Little Paxton School parents’ afternoon and so we had no time for our Copper Kettle roast beef. An hour or two for a little office work and then it was 3.30pm and time for our own interview with Mrs Cottam to discuss Della's progress. It was quite a pleasing picture, with Della being quite bright if a little lacking in the confidence to speak up on occasions. It seems that she is the centre of attraction and others buzz around her. Home for another short spell when I worked out a complete action list of outstanding items which is quite horrific after the FOCUS disruption. Di had Chris and her girls to come over swimming and, as usual, they would not leave on time and so, by the time she had prepared a hot meal for me, I already had one foot out of the door and could not eat anything other than the vegetables which was most vexing for both Di and me. Chris is really a very weird and difficult lady and has been prattling on about putting curses on people!
This evening's meeting was the HDC policy committee, which endorsed my measures to protect young people from the harmful effects of tobacco smoke which was most gratifying. Other suggestions of mine, however, were not so welcome and none so more than my attempts to lessen the charges for council facilities and increase the budget to provide more of them when the Tories are trying to save money! I was home by 8.45pm and this only gave me a little while before bedtime. I agreed with Daniel and Steven Bloom that we would try to bring the Paxton Princess round during the next couple of days as the weather looked favourable and would leave for Norfolk in the morning. The national news lately has been of a bank failure and worsening industrial and employment statistics as the recession shows no sign of easing up as far as I can see. The Tories are still behind in the opinion polls to Labour as a result.