Organising the building work of Harnser in Norfolk
Organising the building work of Harnser in Norfolk

Much of this month spent in Norfolk, where I organised the Harnser building work after which I just had some minor works left. Though we had some fine autumn weather, we also had some terrible problems with rain and the evenings drawing in and getting colder.

The family were fine though the girls had become a bit boisterous and mis-behaved with me being away a lot of the time. I did spend some time with the girls and attended Little Paxton Cemetery to put winter flowers on my dad’s grave Mum was safely installed back at Stanton when I visited her and seems able to manage for a while longer there. I had visited Nigel to prepare our Caithness trip.

Outside my immediate concerns, the country and government were in economic crisis, their policies in ruins through a forced devaluation. Whilst all this was going on, the French just managed to vote "Oui" in their Maastricht referendum and then proved that the EMS could actually work as Kohl/Mitterand successfully defended the Franc on currency markets.

John Smith wins his spurs and made his first speech as the new opposition leader and unsuccessful Labour leadership candidate Brian Gould resigns the shadow cabinet.

We had some terrible problems with weather again this month. It was very wet and then, with the evenings drawing in and the weather getting colder, it was becoming quite unpleasant to work outside. We had no flooding as I had raised the plot height up quite a lot after the dredging, but the hailstones actually killed thousands of seagulls off of the East Anglian coast. The Great Ouse valley was hit, and my riverside gardens were well under but the games lawn just stayed clear of it. We also had some fine autumn weather as we worked and, with the geese circling overhead, we enjoyed the Norfolk landscape and wildlife. The family were fine though the girls had become a bit boisterous and mis-behaved with me being away lots of the time. Mum was safely installed back at Stanton when I visited her and seemed able to manage for a while longer there. 

** "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **

I made a brief home visit between two working weeks that ended on the 11th and had to call in on Mum and Freda to find them unhappy and arguing now that Mum was forced to stay with her to recuperate from her injured ankle. I was fairly short with both of them for not making the best of the situation. I still spent some time with the girls and attended Little Paxton Cemetery to put winter flowers for Dad on his grave. Catching up after a busy month and chance for a haircut and to do my journal archive for July/August, I took Di to Brackenbury's, attended to our investments and visited Nigel to make preparations for our Caithness trip to my Broubster forestry estate. At this season's end, we found that we had four baby doves, but all of them soon were caught and killed by a neighbour's black cat. We enjoyed a nice visit from Daniel and Angela and then we meet her parents as they all left to take her to her tutorial year in Rouen, near Paris.

The building work continued apace as Harnser had windows and glazing fitted. The list of work was endless, plumbing, electrical wiring and distribution box installation and outside cladding. Then the scaffolding was removed, and rain-ware and sewage tank installed and connected. The Cellotex insulation applied upstairs, inside dormers and ceilings formed from Masterboard, partition constructed between stairs and kitchen and then real landmarks reached as the external doors were hung, power switched on and door locks fitted to secure the building. It was a long job to fit the kitchen but at least the wall units were assembled and fitted into place. We notified the local authority of us having completed the drainage and had the honour of a visit from Mr Cooper, the building inspector, who had been strangely absent until then. The only problem was that I was to have an increasingly difficult relationship with the main carpenter, David, who was not happy with me setting the priorities and with him stopping off work one day to receive another customer on site and discuss his forthcoming project whilst everyone else was held up and waiting for his instructions. I called a halt to this, and we fell out a bit.

Apart from other trips to Norfolk on my own (when I finished staining the roof timbers and built the balcony staging) I was catching up with family affairs for some of the month. Lots of administration and the swimming pool to clean out properly after plenty of neglect. Diana did come and join me in Norfolk once overnight to plan the tiling as I commissioned the hob extractor, and we had some fun. The Range Rover broke down this month in Horning. I thought that it was just the battery that had run down but the car was so out of tune and needing service that it would not start until Broadland Motors had serviced it.

Outside my immediate concerns, the country and government were in economic crisis, their policies in ruins through a forced devaluation. Whilst all this was going on, the French just managed to vote "Oui" in their Maastricht referendum and then proved that the EMS could actually work as Kohl/Mitterand successfully defended the Franc on currency markets. John Smith won his spurs and made his first speech as the new opposition leader and unsuccessful leadership candidate Brian Gould resigns the shadow cabinet.