Diana’s Birthday - A busy day, having a birthday lunch with Diana, I history interview with a local schoolgirl and then the journey to visit my Dad where there was no progress or decisions but he did tell me more about his early life, musical ability of his sister and parents and about Charlie Phillips, his best friend.
Home for tea and then off to a Buckden School governors meeting, then on to Chair a Little Paxton Village Hall meeting. The Guildford four have been released after 15 to 18 years of wrong imprisonment, and shares have been sliding in London and New York again
I was quite tired when woken this morning and I dozed afterwards for a while to recover. I still got to the breakfast table with time to spare for croissants with the others. Daniel had a chemistry exam today and, later on, thought that he had passed it. Diana and I went to St Neots together shopping and we stayed there for a birthday lunch for Diana at the Bridge Hotel restaurant. Whilst in town, I had an hour out and bought two pairs of much-needed shoes. It was a fine and warm sunny day and I wish that we were on the boat.
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With all of this, I had forgotten an appointment I had with a local school-girl who was doing an interview project for a media course. I telephoned her on my return and she came round after lunch. Then my daily pilgrimage to see Dad. No change or developments. They had not reduced his morphine or made any operating decisions. I spent the visiting time chatting to him about his parents and childhood again which was nice. His father played an accordion with buttons (not keys) for the notes and his mother had a mandolin. They used to play Londoner songs for domestic entertainment and their 9 to 10 bedroom hotel was called Crown Hotel in Argyle Street. His oldest sister Lillian was a fine piano player and accompanied the local amateur theatrical productions. She died of a brain tumour at 27 with the doctors not knowing what she was suffering from. Dad’s best friends name was Charlie Phillips of the neighbouring ‘the buildings’, a poorer estate of rented houses.
I was home by 5:45 PM for tea to eat, tend the fish and feed the birds, and had a shave before dressing in the suit for my evening meetings. First a Buckden School governors meeting from 7:30 PM until 8 PM and I had to leave them at this time with profuse apologies so as to get to the Little Paxton Village Hall meeting by 8.15pm. In the absence of the chairman, had to chair the meeting again and it was a busy meeting that took until 9:30 PM to finish. We have to produce applications for grants for some serious floor and roof repairs and continue the fundraising activities and programs. The news tonight is of the release of the ‘Guildford pub bombing Four’ who had been imprisoned some 15 to 18 years ago – wrongly it seems. The share values have been sliding in London and New York again as the US trade deficit turned out to be larger than expected. Other world markets made some recovery, but we are still well down.