The day visiting Wickstead Park on a cooler day after Diana had planned the family trip, running into trouble to use the Rolls Royce as the battery was flat. Diana used to go to Wickstead Park on St Francis school Ascension Day outings and the old rides had been supplemented with newer ones.
Home for teatime to find John Brown buzzing in and out borrowing my bike to deliver recruitment leaflets and to appreciate my hot and steaming compost heaps after my attentions.
No chance to relax at home and catch up with my work today as Diana had planned a family trip to Wickstead Park. I could hardly get out of bed I was so exhausted and then slowly got showered shaved and dressed. I did my chores and tried to start the Rolls Royce, thinking that it would be nice to use it instead of the noisy Range Rover. The trouble was that the battery was flat and so I put it on charge and we went off in Diana's little car instead. We had quite an enjoyable day and a picnic as well, but six hours is quite enough for me hanging around as the girls made full use of their £7 arm bands for unlimited rides! Diana used to go to Wickstead Park on school outings (it was the regular treat on Ascension Day at her catholic convent school) and so she and the girls could stay there forever.
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There were a few new rides since we last came the year before last, but still there were the old faithful’s such as the ageing water chute for which you had to mount stairs that looked and felt decidedly dodgy. The breeze was even cooler than yesterday, and the sun never really overcame this, except in the lee of something where it got quite warm. Home for teatime to find John Brown buzzing in and out borrowing my bike to deliver recruitment leaflets and getting me to print out lists of supporters accordingly. After a period of recuperation (watching just a small part of the day of sport that I had been missing) I went out and finished off the job of consolidating and turning the compost heaps.
They were really hot and steamy as I had managed to get the decomposition process going with a vengeance. They will soon be a small fraction of their former bulk and ready for use on the beds in good time for the autumn. Sometime after that trying to get the Rolls Royce sorted out, the battery was still flat and over-cooking any battery charger that I tried to use. In the end I removed it and put it within reach of the Range Rover and used heavy duty jump leads to crash charge it from that vehicle’s alternator, after which a 10amp charger could take over for the night. To my office to write up this last three days journal and to bed, hoping to find Diana still awake.