A brighter but colder and frosty morning working on my manuscript before joining the family for lunch and hearing from Daniel that he had been 2nd in Maths but bottom in English Literature in his recent exams and then Di took him to Coton to spend the weekend with Gary as I returned to The Hayling View to put up Christmas lights on all four balconies and then used my compute to edit by text all evening as Di wrote Christmas Cards and watched a Western film on TV. Reagan admits mistakes over the Iranian Arms deal, The British Gas issue favours small investors and the UK tenure of EEC leadership ends with no progress on tackling the EEC budget crisis, or common agricultural policy surpluses
A better night, but still tired this morning when it was time to get up. A colder day, with a clear sky, frost on the ground and condensation on the inside of the windows. Showered and shaved, listening to the radio and then down to my normal fare of wheat flakes and milk for breakfast. The newspaper was late coming this morning and so was the mail and so I settled down in the office, reading through my recent manuscript and referring to other sources to update its contents. Soon Di left with the girls to do some shopping in St Neots and then the mail did arrived and so I went through it and read the paper as well. At 11.00am, I went out to feed the ducks and doves and then, after some more reading, set off in the Range Rover to join the others in town. Collected Daniel from his school bus. He had done quite well in maths, 2nd, but had only 50% in English language and was bottom in English literature, with 40%.
A nice meal in Croxton Happy Eater, but the children misbehaved and so I did not let them have a mint surprise as a punishment. Left Di and the girls to take Daniel to Coton, where he was due to stay the night with his friend Gary, and I came back to resume my work. First, I went out and got the outside light cables and extensions and then put them up on our four balconies, switched them on, and then plugged in all of the light bulbs. This took me up until teatime, when the others returned. This evening, I used the word processor to do a host of corrections, but had little time to input any new information and gave up at nearly 10pm to go in search of some TV news. Di was writing Christmas cards and watching a recorded Western film and so I did not get much chance. News is of Reagan at last admitting that mistakes happened in the Iran arms deal; more than Thatcher would ever be prepared to do. The Gas share allocations are being concentrated with small investors to keep the numbers up and this will help with the post-floatation price, as institutions will be ‘light’ and need to buy more in. The EEC Summit ends up with a fair communique but no progress on tackling the EEC budget crisis, or common agricultural policy surpluses. The UK’s tenure of the EEC leadership now comes to a close.