Holiday Inn Swiss Cottage
Holiday Inn Swiss Cottage

After completing the deal for Di’s new car as she took Debbie horse-riding, I winterised the swimming pool, delivered Focus newsletter to outlying villages and then drove down to Swiss Cottage for the start of our London weekend

I stayed in bed a while this morning and was then late to breakfast. There was no hurry, however, as Debbie was on holiday from school from today and we all had a meal together before Di took her horse-riding. I had a busy session in my office, sorting out my correspondence into envelopes and getting everything off to the post. I also made some telephone calls to organise Di's new car. In the end, I opted for an outright purchase with 50% down and the balance over a year with no interest being charged which I felt was a good deal. I also called Jim Lomax, the HDC Labour leader, and arranged to see him in a week or so's time to talk about the continuation of political co-operation next May to defeat the Tories.

** "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **

It was lunch by this time, and, after this, I had to spend a couple of hours preparing the swimming pool for its winter care. I vacuumed the bottom to remove the debris, checked the chlorine level and then added the "winter-care" additive before putting on the winter cover and tightening it up. This was quite a tiring business, but it represented a good job, well done. I then had an hour left and so took off in the Range Rover and delivered my FOCUS copies to Diddington and the outlying houses in Southoe before coming back to meet Di. We then emptied out the Range Rover and loaded up all of our luggage for the weekend in London and set off soon afterwards. We made reasonable time and got to The Holiday Inn, Swiss Cottage, by late afternoon. We had two adjoining non-smoking rooms with an interconnecting door. After the journey, we got the girls room service meals and, after bathing and changing and having a quiet time reading today's papers, Diana and I went downstairs and had a very nice, if slow and expensive, meal in the restaurant. To bed at 10.30pm at the end of a day that was misty and mild after an overnight drizzle.