Monitoring the piling of the Quay Heading at Heronshaw and hearing of the sudden death of Mrs Shinn, two doors up. Then back to St Neots to attend the LibDem HDC Group meeting by invitation but not staying very long for the St Neots Town Council equivalent. Home to settle Della down to sleep after Di had already turned in
I slept very soundly and comfortably in my Heronshaw sleeping bag and was very slow to emerge on what proved to be a very cold start to the day. The contractors arrived with me still in bed, but I still brought my breakfast back to bed and finished having a shave and bath before going out. They needed no instructions for me and were soon back at work. Their technique used was to erect the cross rail at the full height of the quay-heading and then to offer the frontage planks up one at a time by pushing them down with the single-angled tip acting so as to drive the plank against its neighbour.
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Then the floating digger blade was used to lean on the top of the plank until driven home whilst being guided by a cross piece clamped on the rail on the one side and its neighbour on the other. The new plank was then nailed on and the process repeated. I did not achieve a great deal today, apart from monitoring the work, but I did get under the shed and jacked it up level again and put packing under the timbers to keep it there. Whilst I had been away this last week, Jack had been around and greased the front door and mended the lock at the back so this, with the cleaning that I had done, meant that Heronshaw was in quite reasonable shape. A few other jobs and then time to go. I heard from Mrs Vincent that Mrs Shinn (of The Boat-house, two doors up) had died suddenly over Easter which had come as a great shock to Mr Shinn.
It seems sad that these people who retire to Ropes Hill Dyke do not last very long. On the way back, I stopped off at my former architects and paid their bill and collected a copy of each drawing that they had done and also found time to take back a library book to Wroxham. The journey home went quite well but I had to make some phone calls on the way to see what had been happening. It was clear that I was not going to get back in time for tea and so I collected a take-away meal from the MacDonalds Drive Thru' in Norwich en route.
Straight to a meeting this evening of the Liberal Democrat District Group where I had been invited to give help and advice as they started their representation without me. Percy took the chair and group leadership and then they quickly agreed the committee memberships and spokesmanships for the ensuing year. Some time discussing the work needed for the next FOCUS and then the Town Council group met and, for the first time, all nine Liberal Democrat Town Councillors were present. I did not stay for this but heard later that it had been a long and heated meeting but that it had eventually ended with agreement and the matters attended to. This was just as I had anticipated. I was home at a reasonable time to find Diana going off to bed and Della anxious about being left up without company until she slept.