Very warm today. Dot has being doing a little work in the garden, and we have just sat in the garden listening to the weekly Julian podcast, followed by a walk up to the Cathedral. Our various packages arrived, and so we have started on the Cley Smokehouse pates, and Dot has eaten her dressed crab. We have also made a start on the new Neal’s Yard cheese; so we are living quite well.

We had a minor Zoom issue at St Augustine’s last Sunday, when Carrie couldn’t utter a sound for no apparent reason. That wouldn’t have mattered so much, but she should have been giving a talk; in the end Howard read out a copy of it. Pity – would probably have been better directly from her. But she has been having a hard time of it recently, with members of her family ill or in difficulties. Not unusual, but… Her husband Al is now having antibiotic injections for a leg infection.

Monday continued warm, and we were FaceTimed by the Murrays. We agreed how lucky we were with our children and how happy we were that they were together. It is quite extraordinary, really. We walked up to the Rosary and then watched The Enforcer, with Humphrey Bogart, an old film which was strangely stilted, but quite amusing, though it wasn’t meant to be. Apparently the idea that criminal “contracts” on people involved killing them was quite new at the time. Later we watched Slumdog Millionaire, which was excellent. I thought I’d seen it, but I hadn’t.

Tuesday was still warm but with cloud. We did a longer walk to the Cathedral, and Dot sorted out the Hello Fresh boxes, which we discovered can no longer be returned. She also cleaned out the freezer. I’ve been working much harder (ho, ho), writing three poems in a couple of days. Not sure how good they are. We also watched Top Hat (Astaire and Rogers), which was wonderful because Astaire and Rogers are wonderful. Quite funny too. We also watched most of Unorthodox on Netflix, because it was highly recommended by the Murrays.

The next day we watched the rest of Unorthodox, which is about a woman who breaks free of an Orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg and goes to Berlin. There was a lot more to it than that, and it was very well done. The next day we watched Educating Rita, which we couldn’t help noticing had a very similar theme to Unorthodox, in that the young woman involved was trying to break free from a stultifying background by becoming educated. Again, much more subtle than it sounds, and the acting was brilliant, as was the writing (by Willy Russell).

Earlier that day Dot had gone for quite a long walk with Anne out at Poringland. When she got back we had lunch (I had stayed in because we were expecting deliveries), and I then went for slightly longer walk than usual on my own, trying to find a couple of Tudor houses that Peter Stibbons was looking for because they had been rendered into a 3D digital form by a group whose name I have forgotten, and if they were Paston-related he was going to try and borrow them for his fast-expanding Paston page. I had a couple of ideas but they were wrong. In the end I found one of them at 24 Princes Street, which may have been a Paston site, but who knows? It certainly wasn’t a Paston house.

When I got home I thought I might be able to find the other one online, and eventually I did. It turned out to be Bacon House on Colegate, and it had a historical connection to Kett’s Rebellion in that it was owned by the Sheriff of Norwich, Henry Bacon, at the time of the Rebellion (1549), and he sheltered the Earl of Warwick when he was being chased by rebels. There is a Paston connection to the Rebellion, but probably not enough to make it a Paston site. Quite satisfying to have found it, though.

On Thursday, which was again warm, we took the radical decision to drive to North Walsham and put some roses from our garden on the graves there. That went well: we met a guy of 91 who was visiting his wife’s grave: she had died 10 months ago and he went up every day. He stood a bit close to me, but I couldn’t push him away – also I have developed a deafness in my left ear which makes social distancing quite difficult.

Afterwards we intended to go to Happisburgh, but we got diverted to Walcott, which was packed with cars; so we gave it a miss. Happisburgh car park was closed because of you-know-what, and we gave up the idea of walking on the beach, partly because the toilets were all shut as well, and we needed to use some. So we went home, pausing only to pick up my prescription from the chemist’s. This took about 24 hours to order, as opposed to four or five days before the crisis.

When we got home and had used the toilets, we walked over the Julian Bridge so that Dot could see the new development, and the ancient house that’s falling down. I put a picture of this on Facebook. It looks pretty dangerous to me. The house, not Facebook.

Mark has not come back; so presumably he made it to Alabama all right. On Thursday evening we did what is said to be the final “clap” for NHS and other key workers, and last night we did the special Aspland Roadwine evening to commemorate VE Day+21. More people attended from lower down the road, including the new occupants of the flat next to Des. I had quite a long chat with Freddie, who seems to have some good ideas about what he wants as a career, and some good contacts too. I think he should be OK. Phoebe brought out her ukulele again, but only played it very quietly.

Had a FaceTime with David and Amy, who was very disappointed that we knew nothing about the Elon Musk space launch due tonight. We are going to try and catch it at 8pm to restore her faith in us.

It’s been pretty windy the last three or four days, but not cold. In Canada it’s now much hotter than here – a dramatic turnaround. Last Tuesday was a fairly dramatic day for another reason: Dot had a DSSO Zoom meeting in the morning that went on for about two hours, and then in the afternoon we popped into Des and Chris’s garden for a drink – observing all the necessary precautions, like taking our own drink and sitting away from each other.

While we were there David and Chrissy FaceTimed us and told us they were getting married! We needed to write a letter for the Canadian authorities to tell them we were pleased and how long we’d known Chrissy – clearly they needed to know it wasn’t a marriage of convenience designed to get David permission to stay in Canada.

In the evening we had our usual Cake and Compline Zoom session, which went pretty well, except that Eleanor couldn’t connect because David A hadn’t sent her the full link code. Vicky was busy making a video for her friend’s daughter; so she didn’t make it either.

Wednesday was very warm. We went for a short walk by the river. Hello Fresh arrived, and we ordered some more cheese from Neal’s Yard – two cheddars and a blue. The following day we also ordered another selection from Cley Smokehouse, followed closely by some stuff from Amazon, but that may have been on Thursday, which was Ascension Day.

That day we also started an eleven-day morning series of Thy Kingdom Come sessions leading up to Pentecost. Only about six minutes a day, led by Sarah, but really helpful. In the afternoon we took some coffee recycling stuff to the shop on Rosary Road, and then continued into the Rosary for a longer walk. Annoyingly, we have discovered that Hello Fresh no longer take their boxes and insulation materials back for recycling; so we have to dispose of them ourselves. Understandable, I guess.

In the evening there was a special Ascension Day service for the Deanery, which we attended on Zoom. We are “attending” a lot more services than we would normally do, which is interesting. This was followed by the usual clapping for the NHS and chat with the neighbours. I had been writing stuff for my website and articles for Parish Pump, the last of which I completed on Friday.

That turned out to be a busy day . We had a long conversation on the phone with Dave and Julia about David’s wedding plans (mainly). Everyone has seemed really happy about it. Then Des and Chris paid us a return garden visit, and we went for a short walk, followed by the VE Day +14 wine-in-the-street session, with Phoebe on ukulele. After quite a long while, during which we discovered that Mark is making another attempt to return to Alabama, via Heathrow and Dallas, I went in to cook the evening meal. Apparently this was quite impressive (my cooking it, not the meal itself). Roger and Adrian were both in touch with Dot.

Another windy day on Saturday. My cousin Ann had e-mailed me to say she was staying at Llandudno and it was blowing a gale. Not sure how she managed that. Spoke to David and Amy on FaceTime, then rang Phil to tell him about David’s marriage, and my cousin Barbara to see how she was. Dot and I walked up to the Cathedral.

Today I heard most of St Luke’s service, which included a good illustrated talk by Simon Snell. Dot was still in bed, finishing Underland, the book I had so enthused about. She was similarly very taken by it. Over lunch we were FaceTimed by David and Chrissy, and my e-mail correspondence with Ann has turned into a bit of a marathon. I don’t think she has much to do. Mark left early this morning; we wait with bated breath.

David’s 48th birthday today! We have just had a four-way FaceTime with him and Oliver and Amy. Everyone seems on good form. Our books got to him, but the children’s present hasn’t arrived yet. Here in England it’s a beautiful warm and sunny day, and Dot is painting the second gate. She painted the one by the bins yesterday.

It’s been quite a busy week, as lockdown weeks go. On Wednesday I drove to Leiston for my COVID-19 test. It was the nearest testing station to Norwich, you will not be surprised to hear. In the end Dot didn’t come with me, which I think was the right decision. Let me say right away that the results were negative, but I didn’t find that out till Friday.

The only problem on the way to Leiston was that the A146 was shut; so I had to cut through Yelverton to the Poringland-Brooke road; from there it was pretty much plain sailing. I arrived 20 minutes early, but the Army – for it was they – didn’t worry about that. I got waved straight into the Leisure Centre car park, where they tried to speak to me through a closed window but eventually resorted to showing me a number that I had to phone. That worked well. I was phoning someone about a metre away. Obviously I was in the car, and he wasn’t.

I had to do my own test, which involved unpacking the gear (which was thrown into the car through the side window) and the instructions, which were even more complicated. I had to swab my throat without touching any other part of my mouth, and then put the same swab up one of my nostrils. That was the easy bit. I then had to detach a couple of bar codes from a sheet and put one of them on a small tube, into which I then inserted the swab, breaking off the end and screwing on the lid. I then had to put the tube into one bag, put another bar code on that, then put that bag into another bag, drive round and throw it into a large sack. I then drove home.

Or I could have driven home. I was temptingly near Aldeburgh and other beaches, but I thought it wouldn’t be fair on Dot if I went to the sea; so instead I went to Leiston Abbey, which I could see from the road and which I expected to be closed. But it wasn’t, and there was just one car in the car park. So I parked and walked round the ruins, taking a few photos. It was quite chilly, but dry.

Something really bizarre happened on the journey home. I took the back route from Halesworth because I was behind three slow highway maintenance lorries. It’s a road I know very well, but it was surprisingly busy. Not far from St Cross I decided to put my satnav on, just to see how it directed me. This only involved pressing one knob, because it was all set up. Immediately afterwards I noticed a road going off to the right that I didn’t recognise, but I carried straight on and the road became unexpectedly narrow. I passed two groups of walkers and a Royal Mail van. I was driving very slowly because it was so narrow, and I quickly found myself entering Homersfield, which should have been about four miles away. I drove into the village, which I sort of recognised and found myself exiting close to the A143. It didn’t make any sense.

Anyway, I then drove home by the road through Alburgh, which I know extremely well, and the satnav kept telling me to go a different way, which is stupid but normal. I got home in very good time.

The following day things reverted to normal-for-lockdown. It was a bit chilly, but after Dot did some violin practice we walked up to the Cathedral, and at 8pm we had the usual applause for the NHS. It was Dot’s father’s birthday.

On Friday I got my test results, which were as expected. We walked up to the Cathedral again, and Dot spent a long time sorting through some old letters, bringing back memories. I did some Paston letters and put together some old photos for David, with extended captions. At 6pm we had wine in the street (VE Day + 7) – a long chat with an even bigger group of neighbours. I spent a great deal of time talking to Michael (No 16).

Saturday was a bit warmer, but not much, and after feeling pretty lifeless all day I managed to gather enough energy to walk to Cow Tower with Dot. Had a long chat with Amy on FaceTime, but didn’t do much else. I was a bit dodgy yesterday too, taking Paracetamol for the first time since lockdown – felt queasy and totally stuffed up. Feel better today, although I’m still quite stuffed up.

On Sunday we attempted to join the St Luke’s service on Zoom, but there was some major issue, and it wasn’t working properly. I did manage to access it later; so heard part of the sermon! Our own service in the evening went pretty well: I led it, and it was attended by Marlene from St Luke’s and Heather Vesey from Aspen, Colorado. Also by Sarah the vicar, though she remained sound only. Anna did a sermon which was bit long and obscure for my taste, but I’m sure everyone else enjoyed it.

Dot and I have been listening to a series of podcasts on Julian of Norwich by an American woman with three names: Veronica Mary Rolf. Surprisingly for someone with three names, they’re very good.

Dramatic news this morning: I have been selected to have a COVID-19 test. This is as a result of filling in a Q&A regularly on a research App and reporting feeling unwell over the last two or three days. In fact I think I had a stomach upset followed by unusually bad hay fever (unusually bad for recent years, that is), but this was enough to get me qualified for the test. They’re probably using me as a control.

I have to go to Leiston in Suffolk tomorrow morning. There are no test sites in Norfolk, of course. Why would there be? Dot insists on coming with me, though she can’t be tested as she has no symptoms.

This morning we went out in the car again (we’d been to the chemist on Friday), starting with the chemist, where Dot had to pick up her prescription, and then proceeding to B&Q on the ring road where we did click-and-collect to pick up some paint Dot had ordered. She is intending to paint the gates and possibly the wall by the bins, when it gets a bit warmer. The last three days have been pretty chilly, though today is the best of the three, as the wind has dropped. The B&Q operation was impressively straightforward, possibly because Dot was the only person doing click-and-collect. We have just walked up to the sorting office to post some cards, and it wasn’t too bad. There are markedly more people about.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday last week were warm. On the Thursday we walked up by the Cathedral and in the evening did our usual clap for the NHS with the neighbours. This was followed on Friday – after a walk up the Rosary – by a glass of wine for VE Day at 6pm. All the usual suspects came out into the street with their glasses of wine, and we met a couple from further down – Matt and Angela. The latter comes from Peterhead; so we had a little chat about Aberdeenshire. All every pleasant, but not up to the standard of Carrie’s street: she has been given a busking amp by some misguided individual, and led some singing from the green at the end. We didn’t sing, but talked quite a bit, sometimes creeping a bit too close to each other but mainly not. In the end it rained (the only time for days), and we had to break it up.

On Saturday it was very warm, and we did a long walk down by the river and beyond Carrow Road, then back along the footpath by the railway. Halfway round David FaceTimed us, and Oliver and Amy joined in, which was a nice surprise. It’s quite long walk, so I was feeling pretty tired at the end of it. Nevertheless I did some more Paston stuff.

During the night I felt a bit ill – head and stomach. I think it was something I’d eaten, and I haven’t really felt right since, because I developed this sort of hay fever which got a bit out of control. Nevertheless I had a good night last night, and I think the worst is over. Sunday was a rough day generally – wet, windy and cold. We Zoomed into the St Luke’s Service in the morning, and I led the St Augustine’s one in the afternoon. It seemed to go quite well.

The hay fever was bad yesterday, making me feel very tired, and I found it difficult to muster 4000 steps inside the house. Nevertheless, I did get there. We are now well into Season 3 of The Expanse, and in odd half-hours we’re watching a rerun of Gavin and Stacey, which is very funny. Spoke to Andrew on Sunday and Phil yesterday, as well as Dave and Julia, who seem to be surviving quite well.

And so we saunter into May, with the weather warming up in a misleading sort of way, as it’s forecast to be very cold during the latter part of the coming weekend. On May Day itself, last Friday, it was mixed but not too cold. After receiving the groceries from Des I updated the Compline for Tuesday (our eight-strong group is now Zooming fortnightly), and because his battery went flat at the supermarket we decided to take the car for a run and end up with a walk at Dunston Common.

The best-laid plans. Dunston Common car park was thoughtfully taped off, and so I drove on to the lane above Caistor Roman Camp, where I often park for a walk down the lanes and across the fields. There are usually two or three cars there. On this occasion there were between 12 and 20. So much for blocking off car parks. We eased our way between walkers and back into the city, where I went for a walk in Carey’s Meadow, where there was one car in the small car park. Dot went home to take the washing in, because rain was threatening, but then joined me. It was quite pleasant – not too many people and only a few spots of rain. In the evening we watched the last two episodes of Blood, which was quite a good thriller.

Saturday was slightly warmer, with clouds but no rain. I changed the water filter, started sorting out all my Paston stuff and sent off some money to charity. We walked in the Rosary.

On Sunday the weather was pretty nondescript and uninviting; so I did my walking in the house. We had our usual Zoom service with St Luke’s and then in the evening an experimental session with St Augustine’s, featuring much news-sharing and a lectio divina from Anna. After this we watched Van der Valk, a reincarnation of an old series with good characters but a script verging on the mediocre.

Next day was warmer, and I finished Underland, a book by Robert Macfarlane that David bought me for Christmas. Clearly not a book you read quickly, but absolutely brilliant in its description of the various underground areas of the planet. Some of his exploits were remarkable: I’m quite surprised he’s still alive. And his writing is beautifully poetic.

Sarah rang (she is very good at getting in touch with her “flock”), and Dot and I had a 20-minute chat with her. Dot has just discovered how to use both telephone receivers at once, which means we can have three-way chats. Obviously, because we can, we do. I did a bit more of the Paston stuff but didn’t actually finish it till Tuesday morning. Later Dot and I walked up Bishopgate and back, and in the evening watched Killing Eve, followed by The Sense of an Ending, which was a very good film about how we tell ourselves stories about what our life was like, when in fact…

Yesterday a beautiful package of cheese arrived from Neal’s Yard, ordered by David from Canada. We’ve already had some of the Cheddar, which is superb. You can actually just sit and eat it without accompaniment, and there’s not many cheeses you can say that about. Did a bit of Paston work again, starting with some editing and ending up with writing a page on Captain Robert Paston, who was shipwrecked off Nova Scotia in 1711. Fascinated? Here’s the link. We also walked up to the Rosary again, though we were both feeling tired.

At the end of the day I got a surprise e-mail from Canada (via Joy McCall) about one of my poems – Alien, which I wrote back in 2008 or 2009. Apparently this Canadian teacher has been using it to discuss poetry with her classes and wanted to know more about it. She was surprised not to find it on the Internet or discussed in learned journals. I like this woman. So this morning I wrote her an e-mail back telling her what it was really about and saying a few other things about poetry. I also sent her another poem, White Wolf, which she will probably hate. Quite exciting.

Alien

There is an alien in the garden
huge and shiny
lying there, behind the hedge

He is not dead:
we see him from the window
breathing in and out
under the wind and rain

We have seen inside him too:
he has been crying:
his stomach is wet and tastes
like another planet

We have swum there:
he has swallowed us whole
but we escaped
three times into the storm

The alien watches:
he is waiting for us
to come back