Debbie’s first day at school and an office day working problems of property acquisition and company disposal as police find recriminating evidence at the former Libyan embassy

Debbie in BalletA good night’s sleep before up and to a fine breakfast of boiled egg and bread. Today was Debbie’s first day at Little Paxton Primary School and she was quite happy to go, staying for school lunch and being away most of the day. She also had her first session after school in ‘Big Girls Ballet’ and enjoyed that also. Daniel was off to school, as usual, but succeeded in missing the bus home and causing a bit of a fuss amongst the secretaries when he phoned my office. I was on time to the office and called a meeting at 9.15am with my group Directors to brief them on a number of organisational changes that would inevitably follow our Head Office move to Grove House and sought their views. They all liked the idea of the move in general but were not very happy about the restraints and compromises I would have to impose. Then to the morning mail and a succession of phone calls in and out to enquire about the acquisition, monitor the BMMG AGM preparations and start the professional negotiations going on Grove House. On the latter Brown and Merry are visiting on Thursday and possibly Vintners on Friday. Our preferred course of action is a flexible lease but we could possibly buy it. On the acquisition front Peter Smith of Kode rings to ask about an outright cash offer of £2.57M on completion as the share issue could be a problem for the other stockholders. Also a phone call to Brammer and John Head the Chairman reveals that they had a board meeting today and decided to take up the 25% Byte Shop option and value it for disposal at around £1/4 million which is a problem.

An afternoon struggling with paperwork priorities to no successful conclusion, reviewing Byte Shop matters with Peter King and then at 4.00pm second interviewing an excellent Comart Export Manager with David Fear and I think he will make a good salesman. Home to read some work papers and to leave company administration until tomorrow. News today of the police finding the remains of an arms cache in the Libyan buildings and also a spent cartridge case in the room from which the shots were fired. At last the weather turns dull but without the rain which the ground now needs.