This month started with my shooting and fishing trip to Scotland and ended with supervising the start of construction of my Harnser boatshed in Norfolk and included much activity in between.
Much of the month was spent in Norfolk preparing the groundworks, getting quotations for materials and borrowing a barge for moving them in, for I had decided to contract tradesmen and manage the work myself. Also organising services and a planning agreement.
Socially, our regular family visit to see Di’s parents in Cambridge, hosting Mum Grace and Della’s 8th birthday parties, as she did well in Art and School sports and started to ride a bicycle; a testament to her accident recovery. The Hayling View swimming pool was popular in the very hot weather that followed the thunderstorms early in the month.
The Maastricht EEC Treaty for closer European integration was causing problems and divisions for the UK and the Danes, the new leader of "Russia", Boris Yeltzin and US President Bush did an historic deal on nuclear arms reduction but peace-making in South Africa started to go wrong as the ANC and Zulus fall out and the white government troops start shooting demonstrators.
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The month started with my trip to Scotland, enjoying the trout fishing and sorting out the management of the forestry estate and then ended with the successful start of the Harnser building project in Horning. In between, I had also made several preparatory trips to Horning during a busy and eventful month, but I managed to spend enough time with the family to make up for my times away.
Returning from Scotland with more items for my life-long collection, Nigel had given me many more to add to them and we planned another shooting trip to Scotland for October which will be fun. I was to be disappointed to also find that the peacock had been taken away in my absence and our part of Paxton would not be the same without it. Much of the month in Norfolk was spent moving earth and otherwise preparing for the start of the building work on the new boathouse and this was a busy and frustrating process, trying to get good prices quoted for the timber in particular. I sorted it out in the end, letting the contract to Jewsons, and I also arranged for the loan of Sonny Amis's barge and organised the its delivery to the site. The method of connecting electricity was also agreed and contracts entered into. A Section 106 Planning Agreement was agreed in principal with North Norfolk District Council and David Farman, the thatcher, put off for the time being.
I made the decision to employ carpenters direct rather than contracting an overall builder to save time and money. The work was started by filling the spaces between the foundation piles with mud dredged from the dyke and then the whole oversite was covered by paving stones bedded onto sand both sides of a membrane to hold the ground level and prevent its penetration by vegetation. Earlier in the month, I had cleared up lots of the paperwork back at home and had useful appointments with optician and dentist. My teeth were fine, but I bought another pair of glasses and started to wear them for the first time; this time they were half-lenses being easier to carry around and to peer over when looking up from close work to see people in the room.
I also re-taxed all of my vehicles, getting the Rolls and Range Rover their new MOT certificates and the suspension overhauled on the latter. Back at home, I had a few trips to Cambridge with Diana but she was a bit tense and looking forward to time away this summer as a break from running after the girls. Della had her 8th birthday party - another epic with bouncy castle, swimming and sunshine - and then pleased us both by winning a form prize for Art and then running third in her school sports day race and getting a certificate for that too! This, for Di and I, was proof positive that her leg had healed and the accident had not left any lasting damage to her or her school-work. To cap it all, I managed to get her to try riding her bicycle and then to teach her to cycle on her own on the games lawn.
I also helped Debbie with her maths revision and her exam results helped keep her in the first set at school so that she will be taking her GCSE in Maths a year early. Apart from the party, all three children had a month of friends and visitors coming; not only Angela (in the case of Daniel) but all sorts of others wanting to use our swimming pool and The Hayling View was quite busy as a result which we like to see. We had our first ever bananas from the conservatory plant and they were actually edible as well! We had Mum over for her birthday to Paxton, me driving to and fro to pick her up and then taking her to see Dad's grave at the cemetery. She went to stay with Freda for the first time now that the room was finished at Redgrave Stores, and I also went to see her there.
The weather had been wet with thunderstorms earlier in the month but then turned very hot as I worked throughout the very long June days. Elsewhere, the month saw the Danes rejecting the terms of the Maastricht EEC Treaty for closer European integration by referendum and John Major, now the EEC President by rotation, doing little to help due to his party's divisions on the issue. New leader of "Russia", Boris Yeltzin and US President Bush did an historic deal on nuclear arms reduction which was good news but then all of the peace-making in South Africa seemed to start to go wrong as the ANC and Zulus fall out and the white government troops start shooting demonstrators. Mandela has halted negotiations and called for peaceful mass action on the streets. England does poorly in the European Football Championships, loses the opening cricket test against Pakistan but then tennis hero, Jeremy Bates, reaches the last 16 at Wimbledon and only just misses being in the last 8.