Collecting Daniel after school and making Cambridge visit to study and buy history and wild bird books, Samuel Pepys’s diaries and then to watch by best ever film, ‘Sting’ on television as Diana’s figure grows and Torville and Dean win this last amateur World Championship in Ice Dance

A day of heavy overnight rain and stormy showers. Not so cold as of late but windy and wet. Up earlier than normal for a Saturday and, after Daniel leaves for school, we set off for Cambridge and park the car. Together to look in a couple of department stores and have a coffee in the Wimpy Bar before going our individual ways. I, to Heffers bookshop after buying some frozen cockles and prawns in the market square. I find the English History section for 1660-1745 and am pleased to see the variety of works for the period but can only buy a pamphlet on the Earl of Clarendon as his ‘History’ is not available. I do get, however, the next two Samuel Pepys journals 1665 and 1666 and resolve to read more of the 1664 version when I get back.

We rendezvous at the car for 11.45 and then journey home to collect Daniel back at Readwells in St Neots Market Square – the rain still pouring. Off to The Happy Eater for lunch, and then back to St Neots Library where I take out an interesting book on East Anglian birds. I see how the forests of East Anglia were being rapidly cleared at the time of the two Doomsday surveys in the 11th Century and then how the hedgerows were cleared away from 1945 onwards for agricultural efficiency and more recently the latest toll of Dutch Elm disease on the woodland birds. From all this I am glad to have provided the recent nest boxes and arranged such supplies of peanuts and other food. This afternoon the visitors to my bird table included a few pairs of Great Tits and Sparrows with an occasional Blue Tit joining proceedings. A tea of cockles and prawns before an evening of reading and watching “The Sting” on television – by far the best film I have ever seen. This morning Diana took a bath and I noticed how fat she had become. Apart from her pregnancy her back, arms and legs had all put on weight which makes her varicose leg veins even worse – she will not slim, however, and is addicted to food which is a shame for I can do or say nothing to help her. On time to bed after watching Torville and Dean win this last amateur World Championship in Ice Dance.