Well, good morning, y'all. It must be like the 30th of September today. And I don't know whether you ever received any blank tapes. but this tape I had already recorded on a little bit on the 31 January, I don't know whether I started another one or not. But if you ever get any blank tapes, that's just a mess up at the end.
Well, the rains have come 30th of September, we've had no rain part at all, you know, and yesterday, Sunday it rained all day solidly and it's raining again today in the forecasters for a few more days of rain and most unusual to get rain consistently like this usually comes in.
Thunderstorms and stuff, you know but it's very wet out and the children got all dressed out this morning actually it's quite cool this morning it's down to about 60 which is a hell of a change from that humidity just over a week ago it was you know still very very humid and hot and maybe it won't get up to the 90s again after this I shouldn't think so although there is over 80 problemss for later on in the we the leaves are starting to fall and the trees are starting to turn colour there still a lot of green around here of course.
They're talking about the leaves starting to fall on the mountain so it's much colder up there and here there are a lot of leaves on the ground already and the section starting to look messy, you know it's much pretier when there's a lot more leaves on the ground.
Anyway, so what's been happening, I thought I'd better catch up on this, I've had a lot of communication from Graham and stuff lately, which I've had to attend to a few phone calls and so on and so forth.
Nothing disastrousous Graham called the other morning, which is quite a thrill, just a getday life.
Like he was calling from Tower to Wellington, but it's mostly been over the Brian Hazlock that's in John's work room.
She is there I'm hardly awake yet. Oh well as you can see, it's very early in the morning it's 730. I've been up since about called de6s, but I'm just not got to fight together yet. by the way, it is only the 29th today. You can tell I don't know what day other week it is. But anyway, what was I saying all about Brian. Yeah, he wants to there was a clause in the contract where he could not open another business anywhere within a million mile radius of Wellington so on and so forth. and he wants to buy another business in Wellington, which he called here about a couple of times the other week and John's perfectly happy for him to do that. He's buying a guy called Ru.
 don't and go well the hell he wants to do it I have no idea but he wants to buy his business and operate both of them and Rama has been operating this business without even being there so there's no reason why he can't do that and he still will continue to run Lempton Key which is where of course John wants to be with all the new buildings Graham said there's 28 buildings going up and Lempton Key has always been, I think the best part of town and will remain that way and a lot of that building is going on there so he naturally wants to keep his office open there and so no problem you know Graham's got door or doubt but although Brian said,
and that he'd called and it was all okay with John, he just said youre better to be sure and sorry, you know, so he just put a call through and he hinted that him and Betty may well come over for a truck, which will be nice so.
That was the news from that in. We had Pat lifeford here last week who lived at number 12 Cranwall Street. you know Jane lived at 16. So it was just a house between them. He's a guy from Blenham and had gone to school with John and Graham and Ro and everybody. and he and he manufactures Rembrandt suits. So they had factories what out at9a somewhere and he was over here for the Bob and show, which is a big annual event in Atlanta, looking for machinery, quite offended Beverly, I think when they popped him to see her, John picked them up up about five and ran them around while it was still daylight and showed them a bit of Atlanta and then called in Bri.
 to see Beverly because of course he knew B and Jack as well, well from 25 years ago you know, he remembered them at the school, Jack was a teacher at the school and Beverly was still a pupil, I guess in the sixth form or something.
AndShe's a bit older than John on Pat, you know of course Jack was back there as a teacher so he knew them, but Beverly, oh you've come over for designs and they said oh no they come over for machinery In fact Rembrt ist an a American company I gather and but they said oh no, we go to Europe for our designs and she I think was quite offended at that but I mean you know, nobody ever said she of course immediately said well, you know New Zealand guys have never been well dressed and as I said to Sunny next door, nobody ever has ever said that New Zealand was the trends setter and.
But I do believe that New Zealand men aren't too badly dressed heavens of obviously you see some real weirdos around here and American fashions aren't all that hot you know and all their best designers go to Europe so I don't know she was just getting a little touchy and the other thing they apparently said wasn't that Zealand I mean American mean were so clothes were kind of flashy you know and so I had to explain to her that you know, even Jimmy Watts who was a Brooks brothers conservative like most you know I mean he's a world dressed guy but Bros Brothers is the most dull shop in the whole place, I mean they have that preppy.
And they all wear those cotton shirts all the same and they all wear even their d dressing gowns are the same I mean it is one conservative store and you know in that same Jimmy Watson and the like you know the X Virginia University kind well come out in golf clothes that would just you make your eyes or that you just about need sunglasses to wear well you'd never see in New Zealander in clothes like that and you know not that that's not fair enough but you only see that here you don't see that in Europe or anywhere else it's only Americans that come out in those big.
Cls, and's when you live here, you get used to it and used out in the yourself and anyway.
So what else has been happening. Well, I don't know. We've been flat out. I have not written my diary for months. So I sort of have to just go by what I can remember now, because the kids are well back into school. We've been having a hell of a lot of problems with the school buses. You know, I mentioned to you that.
They weren't taking marta buses this year that the subsidy was just too high for the Education department to handle because the fars had gone up to 50 cents and they only want the kids to pay 15 so they've now the city schools have now gone over to national buses which is what all the other schools use anyway that's those yellow oldfashed looking buses that beagle around and it's been no into trouble and what isn't so infuriating as that Miss Wooten the head mistress has spent hours on this goddamn thing I mean she's just fl out and you know we would much rather.
her teaching our kids reading writing and rhythmthmat than worrying about goddamn school buses, but she has spent what is it with a month back into school and she's still begggging around with these buses and the problems I said back to a Friday about another business again and said that if there was anything I could do Sonny and I had ridden the bus two days to try and see if we could help the drivers and stuff you see the problem is one of the problems there aren't any I must confess is that these black drivers just do not know this area and of course those little buses do.
Funny little roots. I mean, they go down every down street around. and you know, it's hard for us to know exactly where they go because they go on such funny little routes.
But anyway they come and of course then they get a good driver and the next thing he's off S and one thing in another we marta, I guess if they had somebody off sick, they' just throw another driver on well the national buses aren't the same you see and of course these guys probably don't earn as much, the marr drivers can earn up to 40,000 a year I imagine that' with a lot of overtime these guys wouldn't get the opportunity of so much overtime because although the national buses do an awful lot of caring around, they don't you know they're obviously not working all day.
Anyway, so they finally Miss Wton said, you know one of the problems Sony had said to her well, I'm just waiting to see a typical day, she said, we haven't had one yet, you know I mean it's just unbelievable they break down and the drivers don't tune up and they get lost for two hours and all this sort of stuff anyway finally our bus seems to settle down we him to have a nice driver and he chats away you which is he's at least civil which some of them have not been but I think I've told you in El I can't remember what I've told you what I haven't because I haven't made it take for a while I've got all your notes there which I must look at right now too Sony had the problem where the kids came home real upset.
They you know wouldn't allowed to take leave islands on the bus anymore but of course that's ridiculous us the black children if they couldn't take their football gear and stuff on the bus just wouldn't be able to do these things because their parents can't run them to school 20 30 miles so anyway when she finally got hold of the head she rang down at the National bus service he had the guy fired which was just a hoos sit there something pool bug out of a job today but he's not supposed to attack the children on any issue at all, I mean parents can handle it but you don't attack the kids on it they just get upset.
The other thing that I called Miss Wooton about the other day was and I came home every Thursday we get a newsletter from the school and was the thing called Mas in a doubleP, which is the I think it must be the North S Association of Paranoid Parents Society or something but it's something to do with the Northside Parents and they were saying I must read this thing and it was about the children being bust.
And there is some talk that they want to abandon the 50-50 ratios in the schools in the city schools they want to abandon that you see and I thought oh we're not going to bring the black kids up to school here and that this was a big letter in the Atlanta Jen, which is the evening paper which we don't get anyway and to the letter to the editor and they school wanted us and the association thing to write letters to the editor saying you know what we felt well I really wasn't sure what I felt because I didn't quite understand the whole thing so I called her Friday and said you know where did the school stand on it because I wanted to support the school and I think of that I had missed out you know the sort of earlier years of all this and I had quite a long talk to her and she said, you know what's so frustrating is that the South have suffered from what she calls bad media for years about how bad the schools are.
 you know on and on that if anything ever a good happens, nobody ever writes that up, they just give them a hard time about everything and she was quite proud of that article, which I think I might have sent you recently where at least Jackson was mentioned which when you consider how many schools there are in the state of Georgia the areas there were that was a pretty good thing because a pretty good right up because after all being a city school is always an incredible disadvantage and of course with the number of black children that go to the city schools and shortage of money you know these schools outside of the city have endless sources of income from just generous parents and help and so on and so forth but when your busing kids 30 miles those parents not because they're neglectful, they just cannot be at the school all the time doing things. Well I had completely misread this thing and.
Wan to do she was telling me is stop the 5050 ratio but she said that don't mean that they won't be sending the black children to school here, that means they want to change the ratio from 80 to 20 or maybe 70 to 30 she said you know whatever because the black people claim that the schools in the North side area are the best and that they have the best teachers and the best facilities and so on and so forth which of course as Ruthie I called Ruth and she came over and we had a chat about the is very likely true but its only because of course that the parents you know work a little harder on it and have a little more money I'm sure to come and go on but anyway so if that ratio should change of course the dairy children that we do have in the school parents will take them out and they'll be more white flight as they call it here.
And they'll either go to private schools although they'll move outside of the city boundaries, which of course instantly means that there is probably exactly the opposite and the ratio of black children at the school, you know the change from 10% of black to 90 of white which is the other way around in the city but of course Jackson the maximum that they can have in black children is 50-50 which suits fine now I don't mind the children going to school with black children but I certainly would feel uncomfortable if there were only 10% of white children and 90% of black and then you have the ridiculous situation where they're busing a whole community to school another area and so you end up busing black kids to black schools in white areas which obviously is ridiculous gains absolutely nothing so I have been constructing a letter to the newspaper about you know how much we have to gain from one another.
Culture I mean it's very difficult to make any statement without sounding totally racial and which is what it is of course that it's just pointless having more than 50 in the schools and of course the teachers would leave too because even the black teachers like the school because of course it does you know Jackson is the best school in the area and it's quite a thing to be a teacher at that school I'm sure certainly a lot nicer than some of the other schools and what they need of course the only way to overcome us as everybody here says is to have integrated communities not integrated schools that does nothing but integrated communities which is a long way off.
Maybe never, I mean you know, nobody wants, I mean we don't feel as racial or some that one can meet here I mean you can be talking to a perfectly sane person who will suddenly turn around say something absolutely horrid about blacks but you know there's no way that you want to go buy a house in the middle of a black area and feel comfortable there and theyre saying for them you know it's only the very wealthy ones that had sort of got out of this and we'll move into an area like this fact I had a funny thing Rachel has a friend called Beth Stein her mother was at soccer with us on them Saturday and she had three black kids I mean were they black weather and I thought God she get those from and introduced me to them and they're all and Rachels makeland's class and stuff three of them go to Jackson she said, oh these are our new neighbors and she said we're thrilled here.
She said,Be has had no one her age to play with in the whole neighborhoodhood and these kids of her age, of course, and she said they're from Haiti.
And they haven't lived in Haiti for a while, I gather, but anyway, they've been all over the place, but the fathers are very, very.
Professional surgeon of some kind and the mother is also they're both very highly educated people and of course they're just a delight but Sandy Stone the mother was telling me that when they first bought the house of course the neighbour was up in arms about it because of course they would say black and she said this house ain't no drop in the bucket she said this house was $200000 and they just say yeah we'll take it and this old wow that had been selling it and had it on the market for ages and couldn't sell them finally when she sold it to them of course she was leaving it didn't care but the neighbors were upn but of course the neighbors have all been absolutely delighted as to you know the standing of these people they're very nice they had fulltime learn help I mean they're wealthy people and perfectly nice as well and they apparently there's been a little bit of a to of feeling in the area but.
Of they all got. I thought theyre blacks. Well, like American blacks at first, but of course they're not.
Well now let me get my notes so that I can cover what I needed to off your letters and tapes first because there's been two tapes.
This is tape one, which there is more to answer on than tape two, which was more I chaty about Joan and Ed being and so on and so forth our star with S one.
Oh the first thing I had down here was competition Bay and I wondered what if that was thinking of Maitland immediately but I was thinking of the competition one has to make a tape recording with bay the bird by God that bird can make a racket sometimes you're obviously used to it and sometimes continue chatting on through and you don't realize that there is serious competition between you and the bird.
Anyway.
I've got something about frontnot back which I don't understand then I've got parish ofvals etc that you mentioned were coming in the parcel and I had mentioned things like pounds of butter and ice cream and so on and so forth if I was joking but it does sound exciting and we shall open the parcel when it arriveds as we did when Jones arrived recently which was bed their presence and then pet life had bought some more present for the kids from Joan when he arrived which was a great opportunity and we were able to send something back for Joan as well which was real nice because of course Min don't travel with a whole lot of stuff so he didn't mind the least taking some things back for Melanie.
Anyway, so we look forward to the parcel arriving and I will advise immediately when it does Carter well what I think too, I really do, I don't know, I haven't been the elections of really but the kids are doing all kinds of stuff at school, they would take clippings and Rachel's class don't have to read an autobiography about a biography about a president and older president, Rachel is reading one on Abraham Lincoln, what she's really enjoying and she's read another one about his son Tad and the White House and how he ran through the White House with goats and garden A and went right up into where his father was assassinated but.
She's enjoying that but Missfi, you know honestly that class is just to her you know, that's the special class and the kids in there are bright and it's really quite funny. they have they do all the extra things you know and they're doing this biography thing and they're also obviously doing a lot of sort of American politics and stuff this particular session and Miss first who is so Southern and drops Magnolia constantly and she just loves her children and she says things I never compare my children I love each child and they all think she's quite mad you know anyway she says to the children why.
Yeah they've been discussing communism. They're real, you know, big on communism here they.
T everybody to be absolutely well obviously against everything she says why children. What kind of government do we have in this country and one of the kids apparently said one we've a good government and been whole that say weve a good government she thinks that' just say funny. you know thats topic of the day. she thinks that they say brilliant to think like that she she them run bananas. I mean, but you know, I don't really care she, but she does get results and she really stimulate those kids points.
Beyond a reasonable rationale, really, but she.
ItHa them, as I said, very bright kids in the classes last Saturday I met a lady and Mr.
Silverman from obvious extraction and she is well Beth Stan's mother was telling me she is a brilliant woman herself and she has just taken her kids out of what they call Montessori schools here I guess you've heard of Montetessori schools she said and I said oh were they had Montessori school like finished was that the end of the road there or what and she's oh they could have continued to go there but it was too small and I said to her well I thought that was a funny comment most people are complaining about the sizes of the classes she said, well Joel her oldest son who was in Rachel class and in the special class with mypers as well she said there was,
Finally eight children between the age of 8 and 11 and his group she said that's just not enough you know he wasn't get to see the world and she's very much against private schools and I was interested to hear that she said that Westminster, the headmaster at Westminster as a newborn you know Christian and he's just a pain in the neck and of course the Jews don't like that nobody does, I mean I might have mentioned we went to the opening of the stadium Westminster recently we got bloody E bashing the soon as this man started to talk I knew he had a baptist type voice and the next thing he told us that he had gained he had seen the light at.
And I thought, my God, you know if you'd said, well I really went to maths and did real well in maths or something, but he started on about Jesus and all that and I was furious and this of course gets to them too, you know very much so but she also felt that there just was not a cross section at a private school which is interesting because these people had the people.
And this kids in class with Rachel here and I watching the soccer. it was her little boy playing in Maitland's team. and they were winning too Mu a. And she said oh, Rachel and Joel seemed to be getting along terribly well. they were over in the corner of the soccer field on the other side of the field. And she said they seem to have struck up quite a rapport. So there they are chatting away. Well, it turns out that Joel and Rachel are on egg turning duty in this first classroom they're breeding chickens this term. So I guess we chicken to go with the gbble shortly. And they just get on so well. And I said to Rachel afterwards, that's real nice you know, Joel's such an nice friend. And because you know, she's not really interested in boys or anything. She said, oh, he's just such a kind boy. And he's not, he wears glasses. And she said he dropped out of soccer last year. he just said.
That he was going to give something up and he felt like it was soccer because he just, you know, he's not obviously is you know more of an intellectual type and soccer wasn't for him, but she said what Joel can do well, Joel just slides through but she said what Joel can't do well, Joel seems to make a real nightmare of and she said he can read just like we could have reading is fantastic, I said to Rich later as Joel a good reader she said oh he's just fantastic he can just read anything and he read real well and but as mother said to me that Joel and mathematics or another thing again. Joel thinks that three and three are somewhere around7 or maybe five, you know and I had to laugh, he obviously.
Wonderful reading and stuff that his maths are poor anyway, but she was a very nice person, I had a nice chat to her and Rachel seems to have struck up quite a relationship with Joel, which is nice for her to have a little male friend.
Anyway, well where was I back to your list of things, Louis Grzaard, yes well he is a food I haven't heard from him yet I wasn't seeing Patsy the other day who every time got there she's got somebody new work from there and she has to tell them just where I' for and who my father is and what an avi socialist is and how her and havent get on so well and then I think I mentioned to you about the murders of the blacks downtown.
You know there's all these little boys been going missing theres like 10 I think they've only found sexs, they've all been murdered so one can assume that the others have been too and things are very bad down there as far as that's concerned they're formed all kinds of you know parents things the terribly sad thing about these children going missing was at first obviously now if one goes missing there's or hell at least but at first you know I guess it's the same in New Zealand if a kid goes missing they're assumed to have run away from home but you know I don't believe that any kid under sort of 12 has well that even if they have run away should not be searched for other then.
Through the missing Persons Bureau. and that is all they were doing. just sending in and there's only a couple of people working in that department. I mean it's not the whole police force. but of course now there's such a who and cry about all this that you know any child that goes missing for more than half an hour the whole bloody countries out looking for them. but at first, they were just being looked forward through the missing Persons Buau when they found that so many were being murder, obviously they started to realize because the blacks are a little like the Marys they'll end up there at somebody's place and just spent the night and decided to stay on and all this sort of stuff. But now there's a bit more to it.
Anyway.
But speaking of criminals, I went to service merchandise recently with Sunny. And that's one of those big hoteltail out there places. They have everything.
And Sony and I just been talking about, you know one's privacy and everything and done me if they had the whole thing ready and then they wanted my fingerprint and I said to sunnyny well we' leaving it here you know I mean here you are faced with you've got all your stuff and if you go to one these wholesale places I mean you walk in there you get a pad in a pen and you have to write down all these code numbers and then you have to wait in a great line to get the stuff and oh it's just a pain in the net and then of course when you finally get the pastry just now to take your fingerprint you're all sort of throwing your arms up there and saying here forget it but you know you've been through all that beforehand and you just don't feel like doing that so I had to have my fingerprints taken at surface merchandise anyway the garden sounds lovely at home and you I know you're enjoying the new house Jones says it's absolutely beautiful on that'.
Or without in all the rest, so she want to write and tell me that right away.
Well, it sounds like Stephen had a nasty accident with his tongue, anyway, I guess it's all better now.
Anyway, parcel coming, oh yes, you know, you've had our mail that we've sent parcels over to and I've mentioned to you in a letter how sunnyny and I spent the whole day on that.
Elman's business trying to get that.
All the stuff and everything. And I hope, you know, David doesn't mind my sending the extra two things, but having spent that whole at it and all the rest and then having had the trouble with that and everything I just put off shoot, let's just get this whole thing away and you know get on with it And since Id already deted visa and all that, you know and the bills would be coming on through. So you know I'm sorry if it's cost more than well it's cost more than they want to spend probably but in the long run. you know, it's not all that much more. it's the first part that was the main part you mentioned I've got written down here passs and carrots and you mentioned somebody giving them to you, I think because we just love par and carrots,s are very rare here and very, very expensive.
You don't see them all that often and then I've got 20 degrees, 20 degrees is what about 40 70 well that's pretty warm but you know it'sve got the heating on today and it's just well it's down to 60 anyway and David going to the doctor with the pens well send on over half a dozen fundss could do with them.
U.
Anyway, what else I've got jewels and photos. and I don't know. what else I wrote all this down so long ago. And you know, you write down notes and then you can't think what the notes are about. Oh, Terry's daughters left home, I gather. Well you know, maybe it is for the best, I don't know, you know.
Bach enjoyed the violana st on the tape that dad sent and she's coming along real while she practices all the time and on Friday night she didn't have a music stand which of course the first couple of lessons and stuff she didn't really need one but she said to me oh I thought she was calling a submarine too and Rachel was good submarine she gets on the bus it's subine submarine or something but we call a submarine anyway she said, oh she's got a music stand from last year that she's selling and she wants five for it and I said" okay.
Well let's go have a look at it what it was brand new and they're 12 they're the folding ones so Rachel bought it with the own money that she earns you know from Mu Dettrich across the road and she was real wrong with it and her first reaction was that it was in such good condition that she'll be able to sell it for$6 if she wants to maybe a year from now obviously they take it for a year and that's about up but we'll see she's real keen and I had to laugh Sonny and I were just in the stirics because Matthew's Lo the Beola and you know we have to the teacher told them unless they were tapping their foot they weren't playing the violin you know they have to tap.
 beat of four and half notes coordinates and all that stuff and theirre only loony Pacato at the moment once they have mastered Pacato they finally allowed to put the bow in their hand, but she sits there with this ruddy music stand up and on her chair that I bought from Kimbrose for five.
She taps the foot but sunny I were just in asterics whilst playing scramble the other night and she the funny thing is that they tap their foot but they tap the foot to when they you know pick up the strings which is just a hoodot I mean you know when they finally get it together and keep the foot tapping constantly and foot the music come of the tap rather than tap some of the music anyway but it's all fun.
Anyway then I thinksh it must have be more on that other tape, but I just can't think right now what it was, I might just get this one down.
Brong number. No genus lives here anyway, so.
I'll go through that I might finish this now because I've got a meeting at school at 10 o'clock and I must get on with us and I'll play them through before the mailman comes and add to them anyway, the next tape was mostly about Joan and Ed as I said and it sounded like you all had a great time together because Joan and I are funny I we haven't hardly corresponded this year and then all of a sudden we get birthday present I write back then she wrote back I made a tape to her which she would have I worked out just after she got home from Christchurch and then of course Pat life at more gifts and we sent a whole lot of stuff back for meonie so it's really been quite funny but something you mentioned while they were there was that you had the ad in the paper for the Mo bar you should have sold up $200 by the sound of things anyway, the other business was the blood testing of the rest of the family.
Of course Rachel Maitland were not tested at the time so you know if you would like them tested that would be no problem I can just get the pediatrician here to you know they've had blood tests and they due to have I won't bother getting there they meant to have annual checkups here and you can't go to camp and stuff unless you've had one more than a year or they had them just before you came last year to go to school which they needed.
Whoops.
R out there I don't know what I was saying this is side two still the 29th of September side two again but should the kids need blood tests well it's no problem they need another annual checkup but since they're foot healthy I won't bother taking them along and there's no use taking them when they get sick for a checkup they won't do it then but I'm not going to bother rush.
Such extensive checking here. You know, everybody's so goddamn scared about being sued. You know, there was an at on the paper recently about.
Oh god.
It's slipped my mind having babies by ceesarean and oh you know years ago about 10% or whatever the statistics was about 10% of women had seizures that now it's almost the other way around well number one it's nine to five number two the doctors are so scared of being sooed that they are not prepared to take any risks so there's all kinds of weird things going on but you know they can have a blood test real easy so no big problem fact we can get that done at the clinic I think and which is free.
Americans don't use that but I'm quite happy to use it anyway Sunday the 7 of September it was Father's Day really we you know you'd think that I would know that but it isn't the same time of the year here it's a different month and you know with the way they celebrate ans and that year what would even goparent day it's ridiculous but happyy Father's Day father for the seventh of September I always remember that that falls around David's birthday I should have known but we were thinking of you anyway Arthur Alllan Thomas has just become just absolutely ridiculous,
Don't know and I was pleased to hear that that somebody was sticking up to the police department and saying that you know, he hasn't been found innocent altogether although, you know, complete pardon did seem rather.
A let out for the guy I mean you know he could have been given what Patty Hirst got just a shorter sentence would it seems to me, I mean nobody ever said Patty was innocent and Arthur All and Thomas to me that case has many similarities in that thing I think although there are people that are for him obviously believe that it does not, but if you believe that he was the only guy that could have done it while in that case you know shorten a sentence but not given a pardon and the word pardon of course has obviously created all kinds of problems I thought that the joke of it all was that you know when I said to you about sending Frank Gilhe here because the guys a pain and the ni can to give him that nice.
new embassy and everything and then the business about Maldo and having a biele on social credit getting it well, I mean that's just about as funny as.
Bliegate.
Anyway, and you said labor's just got nothing going for it, well it really hasn't for years, has it I mean since Kirk died, there really hasn't been anybody able to run the party and I guess it's not just you need more than one person after all and they just obviously is not sufficient.
Backbone to the party to keep it going anyway what else has been happening Well you know the Atns have been away but lately they went to England with Lewis and Harry was funny Lewis was last seen standing in his penstripe pants and tail they didn't realize that they wore tails all day at E and I said them well you know they probably still have fags and Harry said, oh no this is the first year that they're going to not have fags that eaten they're going to try it out.
Anyhow so they took him off to Eton and then they came back and then they went away again to take Harry up to Phillips Academy at Andover, but it was funny I said to Harry something about Eton and you know how they have said that it's only one year you know that one doesn't have to do a whole lot of work it's a little bit like an American field service thing yout are not expected to get high grades or really worked too hard, it's more of a social experience and so on and so forth and we were joking you he'll come back with such a nice voice and they're hoping that just a little bit rubs off and it must help their grammar these kids.
I go over to a school like that and of course the kid in the next room with a los son and all that and Harry I said well he said oh you know he wants to get to Harvard so that's what it's all about and I said well what's the problem I mean is there's some problem in getting into Harvard and he said oh yes he said his sat exams aren't high enough they have this thing SAT which is the I suppose equivalent to UE and of course if your marks aren't real good in that you don't stand a lot of hope well I mean that Harvard is the best so you need to be doing pretty well to get and remain there and do well there and his marks.
one that thing in Greek history and stuff, but I don't know, perhaps his grades just aren't high enough and they're hoping that this will kind of give him an extra year because he would have gone to Harvard this year, this will give him an extra year to mature and catch up and maybe increase his grades it seems a long time ago but Mrs. Eson's parents came through here and we had not in fact meet them you know they're the ones who I did a itinerary thing not an itinerary but a little travel thing for and they were fantastic people.
 on came over to meet us and they were just so laid back and nice and happy and you know the elephants go around with such long faces at times and John and said well you know I guess they're probably not as wealthy number one number two they're probably you know enjoy what they've got I know theels seem to take life awfully seriously for people with such a lot of money but I suppose that's why you know they have to but oh I sent you the clapping about the airport and how he's got a law case going at the moment because of the Constitution and journal selling it.
Newspapers and honesty boxes and I had to agree that it is not in the public interest for people to have to walk to the newsstands, although there asked something like 16 at the airport, you it's much more convenient if you just want a goddamn newspaper to go by one out of an honesty box and not everybody wants to buy an I love Atlantalan coffee mug while they're there or bar a candy although most Americans will buy a bar of candy but you I think that even the mayor had said so it'll be interesting Marsha says you see Walter's company a fast food kind of thing made all this meals for the schools and they also own national buses, I think I told you that which has been a ho over all the trouble over the buses because makeland Rachel think that Walter is personally responsible on that one day he may even come out and be driving their bus but.
They have a lot to do with this kind of thing too concession stands and all that and apparently the Es have to pay the city council before they start 30% of their takings I had told you less I believe and you know that's a lot of money to have to front up with before you start making any yourself the other thing is that it comes up for renewal all the time and that is not in the two distant future and although very likely will not lose the concession there is always the possibility that one might and so one has to fight I guess for the best rights and he was given and that was the way it the concession thing apparently reads is that you have full rights to every you say there kind of thing and of course the newspapers are a big part of it but like bread.
or it's and all that sort of stuff and dairies, the newspapers are just to attract people in and of course if that's taken away by honesty boxes well then he's not going to get the people in his stores but Sunny's friends were telling me you know that theyll work for Eastern these girls that play bridge and that I go down and play troly with since I can't play bridge that every store at the new airport theyll work out there, every stores having sales for the opening you know big bananas or 30% off out of the airport every store except theelphs, which is interesting.
Anyway, everybody's foot well mash is okay except she's got a funny thing on a look at the moment which she's been to the skin specialist about it's sort of a bluster thing and I was pleased she went because she's going to New Zealand in October.
On November and it turned out when she got there that this thing was you know a little more serious than she had thought at first she thought it was just a coal saw but it's more than that and guys had to freeze it off or something and so you know it could take a little while to get rid of it so I'm glad she before she went on the trip she's got a close train from Wellington arriving this week and so she's fled out and Beverly taught me down to the Davidsons.
Tennis tournament at the Coliseseum last week to watch a few games we didn't see any wonderful games but because it was midweek anyway, you know the best games were at the weekend or something but a lot of the girls have dropped out it's the women's tournament and I think Yvon Ggan I can't remember what I happened to still throat to something and Chrissy ever got beaten and so all in all I didn't keep a great track of it but somebody else why I's morning's paper it wasn't Evonne or anybody but it's real nice to watch the tennis at the Collosseum except that day now that was only last Wednesday was as hot as hell on my feet all.
Became swollen and most uncomfortable but Bi and I chatted the whole way through it, you know Shohogun has just been on here and I doubt that you've had that yet but it's been of course you know with the actor strike there has been very little new stuff and one of the biggest problems I suppose is you know who killed JR well I had never watched that program but I know that there's been a lot of publicity about how English have been just taken to it I don't know whether you get it but anyway the know who killed JR I mean there's bumper stickers everywhere who killed JR and oh I mean it's,
The G but you know that program has just built up to such a fever pitch and then with the actor strike it hasn't been able to continue on although they wanted to keep everybody in suspense of course it's dragged out a whole lot longer to the point where nobody really cares the he of JR and you know a lot of the impact has gone I mean they've had people down at the omni all the other stars they've been interviewing them or having them on down at the omni at big things and everywhere you go there's somebody from Dallas isn't that called Dallas going to be there and all that stuff but the aren first just gone.
Out of it with having this great delay of not being able to produce the next series, but Shohogun was finished before the actor strike started and consequently that was advertised and something elses happened on television here I don't know what it is but it's between ABC and CBS but Johnny Carson has moved from channelnnel2 which is CBS I think to ABC or one of the other and he's now on channelnnel 11 11 Live which is the local Atlanta station at night and a lot of the programs have changed channels and so one channel CBS is advertising that they're stable and that everything's still you know all your favorites are still with them and all that stuff and 11 Live or advertising that you know they've got all the best programs and you don't have to turn over from boring other stuff to see Johnny and all that sort of thing and there great who are going but anyway they had shogu which has just had the highest ratings you know everything goes on ratings here and this shogun was five nights for three hours.
 a long lot of television and five consecutive nights well of course we don't have TV but we do have this radio which has television sound I no one to hear this thing and funnyny Ruthy and Georgia were reading the book last year and I never did get around to getting it off them but it was changing hands so fast unless you were on the spot at the time you didn't catch it.
AndThey were raving about the book and then this thing came on TV so I was listening to it, well of course you know a great deal of it was in Japanese well of course if it had visual aids it would have meant a whole lot more and then all the sex scenes were absolutely silent so I would say that I missed a great deal but anyway Beverly had watched minute by minute she was just enthralled the whole thing five night she sat and watched this thing and the whole of America stopped you know to see it.
Except me and anyhow she told me the whole lot go she went from start to finish quite a little beeverly went through this whole story and she had read the book also and she said it's the first book but she has ever read 1600 pages first book she's ever finished the last page and turned straight back to the beginning to read it again but I guess that it's because the feudal system in Japan was so complicated that when you got to the end you kind of needed to check back and understand it a little bit of the second time but I very rarely read a book twice because I always think there's so many more books to read I haven't got time I haven't you know this so many books to read I want to read more rather than the same one although I hate getting to the know four pages from the end of a really good book you really don't want it to end anyway.
So that was sgugan and that really, well, as I said it was the only program that has been completed just part of the strike that was worth a grain As so they were pretty lucky to have that program that channel boosted there.
Their ratings up considerably Well, having assured you that everybody was fit well, the phone went yesterday morning at about 930 and this little pathetic voice said, M, it's Rachel.
I don't feel good as Sony said how many kids call your mum as if they need to tell you who's speaking anyway, so I had this meeting at the school at 10 o'clock so.
I said  well' wait there and I'm coming down and I'll come and get you well I went down, went to the meeting at 10 and she lay in the S bay and I brought it home at 11 but oh what a morning I was nearly out of gas so I had stopped at there's a little country store near the school which I always hate going into because they never have anything it's the most ridiculous store in the whole world anyway I've called in there and to get gas and I was only going buy a gallon or so because they probably three times there and anybody else anyway it's a weird store they've just got one gas pump and I get the girl finally came out and unlocked it and stolen as I wasn't I get the thing in the car and it wouldn't go so I pushed the little handle thing back and of course then I stopped it again I had to go and get her again she came out but it's not working properly I don't think get the down thing in the car.
And all the gas pumps here now have well not all of them have been converted yet so you always have to double what it reads on the gas pump has to be doubled and it slowly started to fill it when 12 cents finally got up 12 cents which was 24 cents with the gas and absolutely petered out it was out of gas I couldn't believe it it just seemed appropriate for this particular store Well that was that there was no more gas so the girl said oh the stupid woman came out at this point so she said oh well that's 2524 cents she said oh you a penny and I said I'll forget it you know I was in such a goddamn hurry and it was almost 10 o'clock then so I was off to the school when I get to the school I find I had not put my petrol cap on.
 which infuated me Well then I went to the meeting I'm a room parent this was a room parents meeting and I discovered that not only are we responsible for four parties during the year this Halloween, Valentine's Day, Christmas and the final end of year, we're responsible for all the field trips of which there's usually about six.
And the PTO meetings providing the you know.
foood and stuff and then also this is the main source of civil defense and we have to run the telephoning and everything so that nobody rings the school and all that sort of stuff.
I decided that that could almost be a full-time job in itself but the girl did assure us that we were not expected to be at all the parties ourselves it's up to us to organize the parents but when I told them that I felt that we should use the civil defence system to ensure that it works all the time we should use that even to ask the cookies and such lying someone told me that it does not work that way and no it' is ever home there all at work so I decided in my little mind that I shall be ringing them at 11 o'clock at night because people do sleep at their houses and occasionally eat there and I'm certainly not going to be ringing30 parents in the classroom every time we need something anyway so then I went and got Rachel and I went back to the country.
Or to check out if I could find my petrol cap.
So I'm hunting around in the rain for that and I went back into the store and said to the lady had anybody dropped it and and she said no but I've got gas now but it was funny because I said to Rachel about the gas and we looked at the tank and it was still and had this ridiculous 12 cents on so I said  well look I'll take another couple of dollars worth I still was not going to fill up only had $5 on me anyway so I filled up $50 which of course a $3 and it just started to turn over to another penny$51 I went in and gave her $5 and she had to use a calculator to work out what my change was which intrigued me and she said  have you got 2 pennies and I said well you know she wanted me to pay.
Like the$51 being 32 and I said, well I left a penny with you before I was so mad and she said what have you got one penny I was furious as I had to go out to the car and I got the penny and I came back I said that hadn't even turned over one to one yet and I stom out the shop anyway went and hunted from a petrol cat which I couldn't find it was pouring with rain as I told you earlier we've had so much rain it rained all day Sunday and Mondaym gosh you know it's raining a lot lately because it hasn't rained for so long and it's still raining today this is the third day and it's been consistent just steady rain.
Anyway, so I finally got rich and got her home, but another thing that had happened at the school was Elena Greenberg, one of Shea.
One of her kids is in the special program. and we car pooled with her during the summer for that bounty program. She was just as happy as a clam. she had gone out to get in her car in the morning. her husband was in New York, So he had one car out and at the airport and she owns this place called the Cook Work at the Leox Square and down up the omni and she opened another chain of stores called the Fortune nut, which the kids just loved because when they were going to bounty with her. shed dropped call and to see them and give them nuts and stuff and she came out of the house and a tree had fallen right through her new Honda. she was just.
To be tired and she said that they aren't going to it wasn't total as they call it here, they have decided to repair it and the man has told her that it'll be at least two weeks before he can even get the roof and so she really was very unhappy the other thing was that she has not covered for a rental car being an active God you know somebody else you were covered here for insurance on a rental but not if it's your own fault or for instance in this case so she was not too happy and also it's a brand new car with sunshine roof and all that you know it'll never be the same.
I'm sure she's going to be furious and especially when a husband gets that anyway, they're not short of a b.
So that was that so then I brought Rachelcho but she wasn't really very ill, she had a pain in a tummy, I think she might have just had a little bit of a tummy problem, but she was okay and she came home and did a lot of reading she finished her biography on.
Abraham Lincoln and we have started getting I don't know if you they advertise it in the National Geographic this World Magine which is the National Geographic kidsd one and it's just super and the kids just love it and what Rachel does is it refers to the main one for that month of the thing they just had one on hurricaneanes in September and so she went by Obat and got the other article to read she'd got so interested in it it certainly stimulate and it's a good magazine and well with getting if you would get it for the children or you know David get it but the thing on National Geographic too by the way the mystery is sold they are not turning up Grti they even paid for.
By me a Bill went to Graham and he paid it and hed just wrote the other day to say that he had and so said, well that's fine because the old boy loves him so just kept them on going that's fine I don't know I must have put treetop lane address or something when I bought it because when we were in Washington we wouldn't have had an address so you know that can just keep going there're such nice magazines.
So Rachelach went back off to school today and with Maitland and they had Maitland went to skating last night he has skating Monday afternoons, we have a very busy week now we have skating after school on Monday for Maitland.
Tuesday night is soccer practice for Rachel Wednesday night is gymnastics for Rachel and soccer for Maitland Thursday night is choir practice for Rachel and then soccer practice and then Friday nights another soccer practice at the Maitland and Saturday of courses sort of filled up with soccer games Maitland scored in the very first game that they had and was just so proud of himself they drew one each and he got the only point that was going last week they won for love but he did not score and Rachel's team lost in the last30.
 of the game the first time and in fact, had we been able to complain or something the game had run over time and they wouldn't have even scored the other team had they played to the proper time, but however those little things don't sort of matter and so they did lose one love but the second week they drew last Saturday neither team scored and they played real hard I just wish they'd got a game a goal I deserved to get one.
Oh now those little things that you want for the cassettes I'll be sending the cassette and one this time if you know I'll keep sending them but if anybody's going to Aussie radio shack have them and radioio shack have stores in Australia so you know they could bring back a whole bunch for you they're real convenient and but I'll continue to send the tapes in them so that you can use them for your printing things I think what I'm sending is the right thing those little plastic boxes.
 hope, anyway. Oh, in this morning's paper, I'll send you the clapping when I can cut it out tomorrowrow morning. I always have to cut out the next day, which is.
Difficult because sometimes you forget little things but there's a guy down and a university professor here who has just spent three months in prison because he would not say how he had voted on a particular issue a woman was.
 hadd gone to court over the fact that she had not got tenure at the Georgia State University and she reckoned it was because she was a woman anyway they wanted to know how everyone had voted and this professor would not say he had voted, he reckons that the government are having far too much to do with the university and so on and so forth but what has struck me in this morning's paper was he got out of prison at midnight last night, the case is not over, but he was charged with contempt of court of course and he could go for another 18 months to prison and you everybody's up and arms about it.
So he has mentioned and his son was interviewed in this paper this morning and he has said that he will leave the country if he should be charged with whatever it is that they're going to charge him with and they're seriously looking up going to live in New Zealand which is interesting so you'd need to keep an eye on that, I'll send you any droppings I'll you know cut this one out and then send any more on that score because I don't know what's going to happen, I was really surprised that they sent him to prison in the first place.
Well it seems like Graham's got everything teed out in the house, there's some new tenants in there.
With the Navy department and Graham a bet he were invited to had done a supper party lounge suit recently and Graham said there was very favour comments about the house and they met all the hierarchy of naval headquarters in Wellington was apparently there including the admiral and one guy was just on his return to Bath and Graham said he didn't make the that the showers in New Zealand were adequate but apparently a very good night was head by all and they're very keen on the garden and have really got stuck in and said its really often great so they sound like good tenants better than the Japanese I gather.
And things in that area seem to be okay.
Graham went to India over Christmas time, perhaps sort of in January and he didn't enjoy the trip, I didn't think as much as he thought, although he would have had a good time because he was at least well, you know, better opportunities than most because he was with an India guy him he knows from Wellington.
But he said that you know, the heat and the poverty and everything just got to him I think of that.
Well heaven's above one volunteers for one job and finds one gets involved and an awful lot more, I start with on Thursdays, Meredith needs help with A doesn't it you know so she sends home a form what can we do and when can we do it and I said I'd help with field trips and stuff but I said that I would help with the Thursday practice.
Wwhich is432 quarter to6 and I really wasn't very keen on going but I went last Thursday and I couldn't believe that those kids are holy hell and so I feel quite good about going now when I've been a couple of weeks i'm just going to root some of them out of there by the scrub of the neck they're just naughty really naughty Rachel was well behaved when I was there I don't know that it was just because of me either I think she probably generally is some of the sixth paraders and they're just absolute Sebastians anyway so that's Thursday afternoons and.
Then I got a thing home from the school what could we do so I put down all the different things that I would you be able to help with well you know I've become a room parent which I now find as full civil defenses and all and then a girl just called me because I'm doing the PE program which is going to be well one of the you know volunteers there is a PE teacher and she takes most of the classes but all the classes meant to have PE twice a week which she cannot do and so we do the balance you know that she can't handle so I'm on with another girl on Mondays.
For the whole afternoon anyway so I said I'd do that well then the girl that's organizingising it all calls me just now and said, oh you know Sha, I wonder if you'd mind just coordinating the substitutes on the days that somebody might be sick or can't come or whatever and I've got their numbers and they're all willing to help and so on and say it would just be a matter of keeping it all together you know making that tired and it would relieve me if this little extra problem.
I said,Oh sure that'll be fine, she said, oh that's just wonderful dirty dear and then finally the cruncher came said,  well that does automatically put you on the PTO board no that oh my God and she said, you know I hope you don't mind everything else not that I'll help so here I am fully fledged organizing the whole volunteer PE program and hopefully it runs smoothly I mean provided people do turn up it'll be okay but if they start not turning up or anything it'll turn into Belam and I've got to go to PTO board meetings as well as PTO me.
Which the parents of the rooms have to provide supper for and all the rest of it and programme they always have a programme.
So I didn't know one seems to get involved in so many different areas I thing came home from school that Rachel could start Girl Scouts this year and I thought no way we just do not have room for room Scout I mean Girl Scouts she can just do that some other time you know she's so converted to music and everything else that choir really is a big undertaking because it's so.
Regular and she's got to really commit herself to that it's every Sunday too which means she does not get one day in bed if she has a nine o'clock soccer game well you know the weekend shot too so I think that she's got enough on a plate but Meredith has changed the Sunday program slightly the days they have folk mask you last year they used to still practice before the folk masks although the kids didn't sing in the Fo mask and this year Meredith has wiped she's got an extra quarter of an hour each Thursday and in the practice that she didn't have before and the kids don't have to go on the mornings of folk mask days so we will not go on those days and that means her age doesn't to go.
So does not go to Sunday school she didn't like it didn't want to go and I see no point in forcing it she's getting enough religion was's just the choir she knows that front through the prayer book and all that sort of stuff she gets all the you know the ga I just don't think you know they're real big into religion here and although they're testscopalians and they're not as bad as the baptist they're kind of you know they come on a bit stronger than they do at home so I think that she's getting plenty of it for now I think this is Tuesday now the 30 of September by the way again and I've been painting intermittently all day between calls and finishing this tape and I'm still.
Hoping to get it to the postman today. I've just done the second coat on the walls of the lounge and I'm just retouching up all the skirting and trim. So it' done to come on pretty nicely Now. I can't wait to get the lounge finished The dining room is done, but we have not done the floors yet, I have got the polyurethane for them. but you know, they're a terrible mess a paint and junk all over them. So when they're done, the place will seem clean. And with the sudden change in temperatures which is going to come up again this week. but you it really has been a lot cooler It really scares you into a feeling winter's coming on. know so.
Really want to get it done because then we can have better comfort and luxury. we're not going to use the fireplace, but it's a pokey little fireplace. But what I would like to do is buy some of those electric logs that they have here. you can get gas ones, too. But that would mean getting it hooked up. But so I thought some electric logs and a great would be real cute. and give us the feeling of fireplace. The other thing is, you can keep your heating down a little lower all year while like all through the season. And just.
Turn the.
Fire on. And it makes you feel a little warmer in the evenings when we're sitting listening to the wireless. Well, I think this tape's about over. so I'll.
Say goodbye and hope all is well. And that all the presents both ways arrive. You've had a list of all mine. Take them off as they come.