Office paperwork and Hayling View tasks before a walk around Paxton with Sam and a hunt for top-soil. Then a visit with Wiggly to the new Range Rover launch
Tired after a couple of days dog walking and shooting, mindful of the fact of my need to prepare him for his first Field Trial next week. I was late making breakfast and then only just got out with the children to walk them to the bus stop.
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On for a walk around Paxton, getting Sam familiar again with the road traffic during rush hour as he has spent too much time in the country lately and seems nervous of large truck and lorries.
In to do some work but first found Diana mulling jealously over her latest find amongst my things; a hotel brochure given to me by Nigel and recommended by him for its luxury bridal/anniversary room. She had worked out logically that I had not accepted it with her in mind! I had forgotten about it and was not planning anything but still had to spend time getting her over this new aggravation.
She is still going to her Yoga and Keep Fit classes which I hope will do her a power of good. Nigel was on the telephone this morning, suggesting the possibility of a shooting expedition but his shoot captain vetoed it for fear of disturbing and dispersing the pheasants before their first shoot day which is soon coming.
Then a wild goose chase with the gardener looking for some soil for the games lawn from the various workings opposite. Firstly, they are digging up some of John Osborne's farm opposite to lay in foul and surface water sewers from the nearby housing development. That soil looked excellent but we went and saw John who could not let us have any because he is only the tenant.
Then along to the housing site itself, where they had skimmed all of the topsoil off and piled it up until the building was finished. We got the permission of the site manager to have some but, upon closer examination, it was too full of weeds and stones to be of much use without time-consuming grading and sifting. Lunch and then the evening updating these last two days journal and then walking Sam and training him on his game retrieving again.
I managed to call Wiggly and found her down after her trip to Holland. First, the car had failed to start on Monday and caused her great grief and then a colleague had piled into her for including material from their joint researches in her presentation this week.
Percy and others have been chasing her on LibDem minutes and other work which she has not had time for and today, her computer was in disarray and she had a cold for good measure! She accepted my offer to join me for the Range Rover launch in the evening and I did my best to sort her out and cheer her up.
In fact, she enjoyed the band and the serious sales pitches; not to mentioned the finger buffet as she had not had a chance to eat! I was at Marshall's of Cambridge for the new Range Rover launch and the vehicle at first struck me as being rather too refined and up market to use in earnest on the shooting field.
There are not too many accessories available yet and so my plan is to wait until later in the year when I could also consider the turbo-diesel version for economy. I helped Della to complete her project last night, typing it in the computer and printing it out. It took the form of a news-casting script and was quite funny.