A cold and depressing month with some snow showers and gales towards the end but we were high and fry in our new Harnser. I had been staying between Horning and Paxton working to tidy the grounds in the former and maintain the latter. My annual financial planning meeting with my advisers, deciding to purchase property and a little time going back to help my LibDem colleagues with FOCUS.
Also enjoying my new hobby of shooting and planning such outings with Nigel, who I was seeing often. Also making trips elsewhere shopping and to the cinema; taking Di and the girls to see many great films and meals out. Di and Della were not without health issues.
Debbie and Daniel were not too bad; though Daniel had broken up with Angela and was joining me commissioning his speedboat. It was another big month of development for Sam, with lots of time put into his training with obedience and I started him hunting.
The news was quite unspeakable with a toddler killed by youths and elsewhere there was mayhem in the former Yugoslavia, another overloaded ferry Neptune sinks off Tahiti drowning many hundreds of people and John Major was of an embarrassment after revelations in this ‘grey man’s’ personal life
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We were glad to see the back of February. It was a very frosty month with a north-easterly breeze and even a little snow towards the end of it for the first time in years. It got progressively colder becoming icy with snow and gales forecast such that the local authority gritting lorries were out in force in the expectation of a severe frost. But there were also milder spells in mid-month that got the unfortunate birds singing and nesting before the cold returned to dampen their ardour. East Anglian floods were a concern with rivers flooded and the sea defences breached later. We were thankfully high and dry at Horning and our new Harnser and its raised grounds was dry, comfortable and a joy to come back to.
I spent alternate weeks this month in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire and had the family with me for a few days during which time I installed a bird table at Horning and caught a mole. Della had begun birdwatching and the whole family had taken an interest with many more birds coming to our bird table in Paxton. We managed trips to Norwich, Wroxham Barns, Horning's Old Tea Shoppe, Potter Heigham, Winterton, Wroxham and even Cromer where we went to the cinema; the wild winter beach at Winterton particularly suited Sam and the family. At home, our trips to Cambridge were rather overshadowed by the forthcoming closure of the Arts Theatre Restaurant. We got the gardener to return to cement mixing and path building at Paxton at last.
I had my annual income tax meeting with my advisers, preparing and filing our tax returns and making the decision to look for residential property for the trusts with Mary Bloom helping me. After most of the day working on my income tax affairs for the year ending April 1992, I met my old political colleagues again and spent time laying out the FOCUS advertisements for them. , into St Neots for a meeting with my Trustees and Professional Advisers; agreeing measures to invest further in my children’s’ trusts and into a large property portfolio
Whilst in Norfolk, I could grill fresh kippers for tea as I carried on clearing the Heronshaw gardens and stacking the fence panels and timber out of the way. A trip to Stalham for an abortive journey to collect a replacement stair banister ‘ball’ before back when they had made me one. I went to Wroxham for my food shopping and enjoying fresh herrings after my energetic ground clearance which enabled me to organise the garden and resurface it with reclaimed gravel and making a usable drive. Also building up the dyke-side verge. I fitted our the Harnser ‘larder’ as an excellent storage place. I had to handle the planning dilemma concerning Harnser and, after typing up an analysis of the planning condition dilemma, I contacted both Vinters and Ekins but decided to meet up with Andrew Hind of Ekins in Horning to discuss changing my NNDC planning conditions. His services were cheaper and so I ended up instructing Ekins to lodge the appeal. At least I fitted out the larder with storage units and tidied up the grounds whilst I was there. I spent a lot of the month looking at replacement binoculars and buying rubber boots after suffering the theft from my car. I was also shooting pigeons and the occasional mallard for the pot and many starlings to thin out the population. I was able to see Nigel a few times and to discuss investments and enjoyed sharing his new snooker room. He also needed me to countersign his Firearm Certificate application and accompanying photograph application. Though I got home quite late, I still sat up and read the opening chapters of Nigel's new book on deer stalking in The Highlands. With my new air rifle, I was making an impression on the local starling population thus allowing the smaller and shyer birds to come to the bird table. I also unsuccessfully approached an old farming friend, Jack Taylor of Warboys, about the chances of getting permission to shoot some wood pigeons. Back in Horning, I was also setting mole traps for Doris, and she was delighted when I then caught her mole!
Although mostly preoccupied elsewhere, I did find time for catching up with my LibDem friends and agreed to lay out the FOCUS advertisement sheet for them and, after struggling to find the time, I eventually worked with Derek Giles finishing off the advertisement copy for FOCUS as the Liberal Democrats had collected around £1700 advertising revenues.
I was still trying to spend enjoyable outings with Diana, despite being in Horning more often. We made regular trips to Cambridge for coffee and lunch with her parents, cinema outings to see films like the poignant Robert Redford film, "A River Runs Through It" which we thoroughly enjoyed, and ‘Reservoir Dogs’ which we both found to be too violent. There were shopping trips to Peterborough, forays to The Happy Eater for lunch, visits to Wroxham Barns, tea at the Horning Old Tea Shoppe and a rather stressful Mr Chann’s Horning Chinese Restaurant dinner on Valentines Day and we occasionally had an enjoyable family game of Monopoly.
However, Diana was suffering from tummy problems at the start of the month, dental problems in the middle and then period problems at the end of it and was perhaps worrying too much about Della. Della was fearing examinations and suffering from her eyebrow and eyelash-plucking problems but seemed to be getting on top of them. She eventually became fine to take the school bus each morning after her friend Jemma came back from holiday and also made friends with Katie Hitchen. Della had survived her school test but had a setback when suffering a nosebleed during the car journey home after the drive to Cromer’s Regal Cinema to see "Honey I blew up the Kid". This was not helped with Debbie claiming that this was a symptom of Leukaemia and refused to be silenced until hit my me! Della sometimes joined me taking an early walk with Sam to the shop and buying her Saturday sweets!
Debbie was much less trouble but even she was getting tummy aches. I had a session cheering Debbie up as she was getting depressed over her piano practise at school, but we had an awful misunderstanding one Saturday over her return from school when she caught the bus and we had driven to collect her from school which put us all back. This month I had worked with Daniel on his speedboat, draining and towing it into the garage for it to be cleaned and have its steering repaired. I sorted him out a piece of teak for his boat and provided the necessary tools for him to cut, shape, dowel, glue and fix it to fill a section that the previous owner had cut in his transom. We played a family game of Scrabble in the evening. Unfortunately, this work to his boat was held up when he became ill with ‘flu. His sad news was of him breaking up with Angela and, and we sat and chatted a while about her, his cold and outstanding work. It was her decision and so he felt a bit hard done by was being brave about it. He ended up suffering from a very late night roller-skating with his friends but met no girls to console him. We managed just a couple of visits to my Mum who I found all right but a little depressed.
It was another big month of development for Sam, with lots of time put into his training. His weight grew from 36lbs to 48lbs and so he became huge but still had a way to go to maturity and his constant need of attention and walks kept me quite fit. His walks were always long and he had his first run in the country for him when I walked him around some riverside land in Godmanchester where others were scarce, but geese abounded. I started him hunting around Little Paxton Gravel Pits tracking grey squirrel and even more muntjac deer , noting the re-routing of footpaths, and I gave him a dummy retrieving session with Sam on Mill Meadow. In Norfolk, he has similar outings to Crabbetts Marsh and St Bennett’s Abbey for long walks. He was joining the family for outings to Norwich, Potter Heigham, Winterton, and Wroxham and I walked him into the village of Horning to go shopping and, when often in Crabbet’s Marsh I was fascinated to see how the backwaters were thick with small fish, crammed into there to avoid the level of salt in the main stream during the exceptional high tides. It was a struggle to govern his dietary regime as his hunger often led to him overeating and messing his kennel, but he was gradually improving.
I was too preoccupied with my own activities to follow the news too closely, but certain stories stood out. The two-year-old boy lost in a shopping precinct was found dead after being abducted by two youths. Elsewhere, the international news was equally unspeakable with the mayhem in the former Yugoslavia. Another overloaded ferry Neptune sinks off Tahiti drowning many hundreds of people and John Major was in the U.S. meeting new President Clinton against the background of a number of embarrassments in this ‘grey man’s’ personal life