28th January 1943

Thursday

Low clouds, strong S.W. wind.  Went down to Mersea this morning with Nott, to see how much work the so-called thatcher has done – about 2 squares in 3 months.  He must certainly go.  When we arrived, he was a mile up the road talking to some Land Girls.  North Farm looks better now – heifers in the yard, and the old Woods brothers carting muck.

Back by way of Wigborough.  Called at Abbots Wick.  Frost, the foreman, mentioned that he had had considerable experience in working bullocks in France.  Very interesting.  This place is beginning to look really well – a yard full of stacks, a man thatching a straw stack, men carting straw into the yards. 

Capt. Folkard annoyed when I got back.  The Chairman had been in, and I should have been there.  Committee members in and out about their cropping forms.

About half past 3, an alarm, for which I had been waiting all day.  There is hardly one cloudy day when the Germans do not come.   The girls were just coming out of school, and from the front windows I saw them scampering gaily into the Park, towards the shelters.  The Museum was full of visitors, looking around in the usual way, the Attendant Butcher giving a little lecture.  I heard planes coming in low.  Nothing happened, and I suppose they were RAF and in a few moments all-clear sounded.

On the way out, I noticed that the barbed wire entanglements round the American HQ at St. Anne’s are now ornamented with tin cans hung on the top wires.  Perhaps to jangle if intruders cut the wire?  

This evening writing.  Heard an all-clear at 8, so there must have been another alarm, which I missed.  No planes about.