Working in my office after I suffered a poor night with a temperature, paying bills, reconciling accounts and totting up my Harnser building costs at £57,500. Just a break on Paxton Hill trying to spot the missing geese.
Three executives of a British arms company were cleared of breaking an export embargo to Iraq when it became known that cabinet ministers had encouraged them to do so and the Thatcher government seems to be culpable as these actions encouraged Sadam Hussein in his invasion of Kuwait
I had a poor night for the most part. My temperature meant that I was being disturbed by the draft from the open French Windows and only managed to get to sleep after I closed them and removed many of the bedclothes instead. I also find the bed at home very hard these days, having got used to the softer one in Norfolk. Breakfast in my dressing gown, and then to my office afterwards to first update these last two days journal. The gardener came, did the usual chores, and then gave up on clearing the leaves as the wind would give him no control over them.
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As the day went on, I worked steadily away at my paperwork. First the payment of outstanding bills, then the VISA credit card vouchers before reconciling both cheque accounts; the Abbey National and Norwich & Peterborough. The building accounts were next on the list as I reconciled the Jewson’s account and made out their cheque before updating my running tally of all of the expenditures on the project so far. I calculated that the river-work and piling cost £15,000; the building materials and labour £40,000 and professional fees £2,500 so as to make the final total £57,500. This compared with over £100,000 that the architects wanted to spend on the project before I took it in hand.
Even now, the final result is probably only worth around £80,000 but I would not know without getting a surveyor to evaluate it. For the last half hour of daylight, I broke off and went out by car to the top of Paxton Hill from where I could survey Paxton Pits in search of geese flying back to roost. In the event, I saw none from that vantage point and so either they are roosting on pits in Diddington and flying out north or have left the area. This comes after I had been hearing them fly over the house every morning at dawn until a week ago. This evening I watched the long "Battle of Britain" film on satellite TV and then updated today's journal before returning to financial paperwork. John Major is now right in the middle of yet another political row.
Three executives of a British arms company were cleared of breaking an export embargo to Iraq when it became known that cabinet ministers had encouraged them to do so; and that in the time leading up to the Gulf War. Not only were British servicemen to be facing arms manufactured with equipment supplied by us but Sadam Hussein may have taken our complicity to mean that we would not resist his invasion of Kuwait. Major was Chancellor in the Thatcher government of the time and cannot escape the blame and that of denying it in parliamentary questions until now. The Church of England Synod voted by a majority of two-thirds in all three houses (Bishops, Clergy and Laity) today to accept the ordination of women priests in a truly historic decision. The weather turned quieter and clear later and ended up quite cold for the night.