After a very late start and then managing my new gardener, I spent the day attending to correspondence and trying to get out from under a mound of paperwork whilst watching Scotland fail and England succeed in getting to the last sixteen of the World Cup.
Then to hatch up and execute perfectly a plan to take over a key HDC committee this evening, which I ended up chairing! Thatcher is already back-pedalling on European Currency Union as expected
I was very late getting up and showered today and came down in my dressing gown to read the morning post at length. It was after the gardener had arrived at 9.00am that I managed to get showered and dressed properly and then spent the morning in my office. The electrician arrived today and worked all morning and I kept my eye on what he was doing so that the fish-pond was not left without power and life support systems for too long. All day I was attending to correspondence and trying to get out from under a mound of paperwork so that I could spend this weekend in Norfolk. I was also watching the Scottish football match on TV and the sad news was that they lost their game and failed to qualify for the last sixteen.
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This evening was the key District Council meeting where Councillors in the Southern (St Neots) area exchange views and get proposals discussed and agreed. We had to elect a Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the committee for the forthcoming year and I had hatched up a plan with the Labour and Independent members to get chosen as the Vice-Chairman. We were all there in good time, but one of the Labour members was ill and could not attend which seemed to dash our hopes. Then we found that three of the Tory members were not there either (including the two most antagonistic and a sycophant) which gave us a chance.
The Tories nominated Anne Pearson for the chair, but I counter-nominated John Denny who was Vice-Chairman last year. This confused them, particularly as John was not there, and so they withdrew their nomination and John was elected unopposed. Then we came on to the nominations for Vice-Chairman where I was elected unopposed as well! They were so disorganised or demoralised by this time and may have felt that they would be out-voted anyway! So, in the absence of the Chairman, I took the Chair there and then and conducted the meeting to our satisfaction! Quite a turn-up for the book and the other Tory Councillors in the District will wonder what on earth went on at St Neots and what their colleagues were up to when they get the minutes of the meeting.
Late home to see the start of the crucial England match in the World Cup but soon enough to see them win 1-0 to qualify for the last sixteen as leaders of their group. The news today is of a massive earthquake in Iran but also of the reluctance of western countries to leap in with aid because of the poor relationships. Thatcher is already back-pedalling on the ECU, saying that it could never replace the pound sterling and the EEC partners reacted very coolly to John Major's plan anyway.