Another busy month with lots of time spent with my growing dog Sam and the girls. A cold, windy and stormy month in the main with floods to match but it turned mild for the last few days. I was spending as much time in Norfolk as I was at home; first with the family and then on week spells by myself, overcoming the unfortunate setback of having my car broken into and tools stolen on New Years Day.
Della had to go through a stage of being nervous at school, missing lessons and this manifested itself by her plucking her eyelashes and eyebrows out, which was scary. Diana and I talked late into the night, worried about this tendency as it was inexplicable and very disfiguring. I spent lots of time with her as she started going for walks with me and Sam on a regular basis to get her Saturday sweets from the shop and to help try to find muntjac deer in the pits.
Debbie had better news as she was given the go-ahead to remove her braces during day-time at school as she improved all of her grades on assessment and she was always hosting friends at The Hayling View. he dentist ordained a filling for Daniel who was far from happy with this, but he otherwise had a good month and we saw quite a bit of him. Poor Angela had to have a hospital check-up in Manchester about her nausea and stomach problems, but it was diagnosed as nerves. Diana got on well with her slimming at Weight-Watchers and keep fit sessions and got her belated Christmas present when I bought her membership of the A.A. with a car-based emergency telephone to go with it. We also booked an expensive fortnight's holiday in California to please her.
Despite my building work in Horning, I still spent quite a bit of time with the family with trips out swimming and to the cinema which always culminated in meals out. My mother was fine in body if weak in voice and beat the girls at "Cluedo. My own month started slowly as, in common with Diana, I had great trouble getting down to work again after the seasonal celebrations and then suffered from a kidney infection later. I was just about finishing off the odds and ends in Harnser and trying to lessen the planning restrictions. Apart from a little help, I had moved on from helping the Liberal Democrats and was shooting wildfowl and cooking game and relaxing with TV sport and restful baths after hard work.
It was a full month training for my new German Shorthaired Pointer, Sam, who developed physically, settled into much better family behaviour and learnt a great deal about taking commands and starting to retrieve and work. Elsewhere, the tragic grounding of a tanker off the Scottish coast on the south-west shore of the Shetland Islands with a complete loss of all the oil in its tanks which could yet be Britain’s worst ever environmental disaster, Prince Charles was under scrutiny after his privacy was breached and John Major was taking on national newspapers with a libel suite concerning an alleged affair.
The West were still furious over regime in Iraq as Saddam Hussein’s men ventured into Kuwait to recover equipment and the \US took to bombing mobile missiles and command centres. All hell broke out in the former Yugoslavia as the Croats resumed fighting and the peace talks went out of the window. Israel is now fretting at the prospect of United Nations condemnation and sanctions about their repression of the Palestinians.
