It was an absolutely filthy day...the wind howling through the rigging and me shivering in my shoes. I took the 0950 train to Sevenoaks. So much for water shortages in the south-east. The fields were flooded after a downpour the previous night. Every river and ditch that I could see from the train had overflown its banks.

I was with Brian Walker from noon until half past one and then took the train back to Rye...with a stopover in Ashford. I gleaned some kinding on my way home from the double glazing firm on the Old Winchelsea Road. Old windows burn well. A Lidls dinner in the evening...sweet & sour cicken with rice...and then a Schumacher Briefing. On this evening's agenda was Richard Douthwaite's Ecology of Money. Heidi called at ten and we had a forty five minute discussion about the proposed trusts following my meeting with the solicitors.

I used my time at Ashford Library to draft the minutes of the meeting. I always like to get minutes done as early as possible while the meeting is fresh in the minds of all the participants...and to make sure everyone knows what is expected of them. Here are some edited extracts.

It was decided that Vance Harris would be asked in writing (with telephone follow-up) to hand over all relevant documents including medical reports and explain the failure to pursue the claim. Brian would talk with some personal liabilities experts establish the size range of any pay-out and any statutes of limitation with the next steps to be agreed at next meeting once these facts have been established.

My main task will be to call a meeting of Friends of Connie Lindqvist for Friday 7/4 or Monday 10/4 in Rye Town Hall with the following agenda: Introductions; Will; Problems arising; Trusts; Exhibitions; Publications; Questions. Apart from that I was charged with the task of sounding out the trustees. Here is what the minutes had to say about the two trusts.

David Hutchings Trust document to be drafted for next meeting. Opening Date: 16th April 2006; Closing Date: 16th October 2011; Trust Purpose: to be determined at next meeting; Trust Beneficiary: David Martin Hutchings; Trust Assets: Vemara; Accident Claim; Good Yacht Guide; Trust Income: Retained except for Good Yacht Guide business expenses...ie net profit to the DMH Trust; Vemara's expenses...Harbour Dues, Mooring Fees and Maintenance Costs; Trust Manager costs; Professional Fees.

Connie Lindqvist Trust document to be drafted for next meeting. Opening Date: 16th April 2006; Closing Date: None; Trust Purpose: to be determined at next meeting; Trust Beneficiary: to be determined at next meeting; Trust Assets: Rye Maritime Heritage Partnership Assets; Connie Lindqvist's shareholdings in certain Academic Inn Books pblishing partnerships; Trust Income: to be determined at next meeting.

As for Vemara Brian Walker was instructed to agree a date with Vance Harris for the transfer of ownership from the Connie Lindqvist Estate to myself so that we can settle up with Roud and then transfer ownership to the David Martin Hutchings Trust on 16th April 2006...six and a half years before his 25th birthday. We set the date for the next meeting as Monday 6th March 2006 at 12 noon in Sevenoaks and noted that I would be travelling up from Wiltshire.

I decided to spend a few hours putting together the week of texts and e-mails with Heidi into a document labelled A Valentine’s Day Dialogue. Here is the epilogue. In a relationship the first commitment should not be to material things like careers, houses, social sanding, money etc but to the person. ‘Yes. You are the person I want to share my life with’. For me everything else is so ephemeral and transient. From this affirmation everything else flows. It is not possible to be really happy alone. Of course one makes the best of it. We all do. But having one special person in your life is something of a very different and higher quality. Family ties are not a substitute for this.

My time in Sweden is intended to serve at least three quite separate purposes. Firstly it gets me away from Rye and gives me a deadline to wind up everything to do with Connie’s Estate which has been bedevilling my existence…and my relationship with Heidi… for the past two years. Secondly it allows me to finish my fil. kand Swedish degree in Business, Development & Financial Economics which is vital for the next stage of my academic career.

Thirdly it is the most sensible route back onto the ‘scholars residential circuit’. Once I have an apartment in a (top) university town anywhere around the North Atlantic I will have the freedom to live wherever I wish by exchanging my place with anther academic moving in for the six months period normal for such exchanges. Lund is one of Sweden’s three ancient universities and rents there are half what they are in Cambridge. But this is almost entirely due to the exchange rate which I am predicting will change dramatically over the next 12 months…see http://williamfranklin.blog.co.uk. So there is a window of opportunity.