Bank Holiday Monday 30th May 1994 - Distracted by my Cambridgeshire EuroElection colleagues, who should have been supporting Mark Rainer for the more likely local election.
Tired to then chair a difficult Ropes Hill Dyke Meeting before we recovered with an outing to Winterton
This was the morning planned for some time as a meeting of the Ropes Hill Dyke residents and, as present Chairman, I was going to have to run the meeting at least to start with. I had a poor night getting used to the bed and then the car alarm kept going off in the small hours when I had got off and so started the day tense and tired to start with.
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I took Sam for a run to the village to get some milk and a paper and this helped a little but then I had one of our Cambridgeshire EuroElection colleagues, Chris Slee, on the telephone trying to talk to me about this just before the residents meeting was going to start. This was bad enough, but he told me that he had already had a long conversation with Mark Rainer on the subject.
I reminded him that we had appointed Ron Heinrich as our liaison with the Euro campaign and declined to discuss it further which upset him. I was also upset that Mark was being thus distracted from his candidate's responsibilities. It was in this frame of mind that I attended my meeting and, as expected, also had to contend with another group of difficult people.
Of course, there was nobody else willing to take the chair, but I secured the continuance of Jim Holden as Treasurer and then eventually got Mr Lawrence Jnr. to act as secretary and take the minutes and so we got underway. We discussed a variety of schemes such as sleeping policemen, gates, use and width restrictions but ended up with the usual plan of dressing the road with some more extensive work at the worse end.
Then there was the question of paying for it, but I eventually got agreement on an amount and apportionment and the matter was done. Somewhat shattered, we came back and then set off for the seaside, choosing Winterton as our destination with Sam to come along as well. It had turned into a gloriously warm day and we enjoyed the time by the sea. We had our lunch at the kiosk and the girls built a sandcastle, paddled and sunbathed whilst Diana and I took Sam along to the dunes and ran him there.
He was very good and had to be for I had forgot to bring his lead etc. and the beach and dunes were packed with people for a change. Di and I just sat on the dunes and relaxed and chatted for a while, looking out to sea which was very relaxing after the pressure I had been under. By mid-afternoon we had enough and came home.
I could only lay on the bed and rest, but the girls and Di did some weeding in our very overgrown garden. Later, somewhat recovered, I took Diana for another walk to the village where we had a drink by the river. Sam had never had so much exercise and attention as he had today and seemed very pleased to get back for his dinner and a well-earned sleep in his kennel. During this walk, we came across a baby rabbit and he caught it on the way back, but I got it from him without harm which was good.
Eventually I raised Ron Heinrich on the telephone and exchanged views over the European Campaign and I talked again to Mark to try to get his priorities straight for winning his election.