It’s been a bit milder over the last couple of days. Today it’s sunny at the moment, but there has been plenty of rain in the last week. We’re waiting for Linda to come and do our hair, and hoping she hasn’t forgotten (she didn’t) – especially as they’re threatening a new nationwide lockdown in view of the latest Covid figures. There was another dismal scientist on radio this morning, enjoying the limelight cast by projections of disaster.

By way of compensation we’re watching an excellent series on Netflix called The Queen’s Gambit, about a female chess prodigy. They’re doing a good job of portraying what happens in chess tournaments, though of course it’s impossible to reflect the subtleties in the actual play.

I thought the shower room was finished, but last Tuesday Dot did a painting job on her table: looks pretty good. We also went and picked up my pills and dropped off two black bags full of stuff at the charity shop. The garage is looking a little emptier, but not much. In the evening we had Zoom Compline in the absence of Claire (working) and Dot and Eleanor (watching Brentford and Norwich draw 1-1).

Wednesday was the big day. We left just after 10am for Aylesbury in good weather and enjoyed the journey via Woburn, where it started raining. We had an interesting end to the journey, arriving at the wrong Swan Close, which fortunately happened to be en route to the correct one. We realised what had happened before we got there because of the satnav timings, and Oliver confirmed that there had been confusion before – they had had a pizza delivered to the wrong Swan Close. Odd to have two so close together.

We had a lovely two and a half hours with Oliver and Amy. Vicky was in work meetings most of the time, but we did have a chat, and caught a glimpse of Matt too. Amy opened her presents and seemed very pleased. Interesting discussion on politics and music, interrupted briefly by a snap thunderstorm. Took our own food and drink, but Oliver actually made us tea and coffee.

Journey home was fairly straightforward, though not quite the same as the route down between Aylesbury and Woburn, and the weather wasn’t too bad. Fair amount of traffic, but not excessive. We shared the driving both ways. Had a FaceTime chat with David when we got home.

Thursday was a miserably wet and grey day. Des brought us the shopping and I got round to restringing my guitar and doing the charity money. Had a surprise phone call from Jenny Baxi in Coventry, asking about Andrew. She seemed to have lost touch; so I filled her in and promised to write – which I did, sending her a couple of pictures. My e-mail correspondence with Ann Rumsby over her family tree continues. We seem to have filled in some gaps. In the evening we watched a TV drama called The Sister – all four hour-long episodes! It was a pretty good thriller and (obviously) compelling.

Yesterday we went to Morrisons to buy soup for the evening meal – we had Caren and Phil Gazley round. Had a lovely meal (salmon), and interesting conversation – they stayed till nearly 11pm! Caren seemed very interested in our DNA; so we raked out the results we had from MyHeritage, and we told Dot’s mystery story again. I’d forgotten that though I’m 61% British and Irish, I also have a sizeable chunk of Eastern European and smaller chunks of Italian and Spanish. Very EU. Caren had the most amazing mixture, coming from New Mexico and having traces of different parts of Africa, Native American and Irish, among other things.

Earlier we discovered it was mild enough to have wine in the street: amazingly we had to remind Des, but the four of us were joined by John and Mark, and a good time was had by all, despite our talking about politics much of the time. All in the dark, of course. Earlier still I rang Lily and Kristine, both of whom are surviving, though Lily has fibromyalgia and Kristine is still missing David after three years. She is very busy, however. She promised to Zoom us when her broadband was fixed ( = became reliable).

Sadly I have just discovered that another cousin has died. Reg’s daughter Brenda apparently died in June – I don’t know what from. I learnt the news from Ann, who’d had an e-mail from Jonathan in response to an inquiry about family trees.

Here we are at the start of another week, and it’s surprisingly sunny. Dot has gone out to Poringland to see Anne. They were going to go for a walk, but Dot’s knee is still giving her problems; so they’re going for lunch at Green Pastures instead. This means I’m carless of course, but I expect I shall manage!

I have made a couple of phone calls – one to order my pills and another to pay for the flooring in the shower room, which was laid on Friday. It only took 90 minutes and looks very good. At last the room is complete! I have quite a long list of things to be done, including clearing up fallen leaves: after a windy weekend, there are a lot about.

Amy’s birthday is nearly a week ago now. We spoke to her in the evening of the day, and she was pretty excited – especially about David’s present – a projector which she uses to create pictures on the wall in her room. All being well, we shall be seeing her on Wednesday.

Also on her birthday we watched Norwich City beat Birmingham, with Vrancic coming on and scoring the winning goal near the end. He performed the same trick on Saturday against Wycombe Wanderers, this time from a free kick on the edge of the area, making the score 2-1. We had scored very early on through Pukki, but then gave away a careless goal and made hard work of the rest of the game. Idah was sent off very near the end. Deserved to win, though.

On Wednesday last week Janet and Derek Bower came for lunch (12-2.30). We put the table round the other way and liked it so much we’ve left it there. Had a very pleasant time and a good meal – salmon, Brussels pate and apple crumble with sorbet. That’s three courses, not one. And not in that order.

We’ve watched a few films – The Brink’s Job, which was quite funny, Citizen Kane (not as good as I thought it would be, though I remembered about Rosebud), and Last Holiday with Alec Guinness, which was excellent, as was Rebecca (new on Netflix and with three of my favourite actresses – Lily James, Kristin Scott Thomas and Keely Hawes).

On Thursday Dot went to a violin sextet which has been set up as part of the Sillars Orchestra. It was in a house in Colney Lane, and she really enjoyed it. In the evening we went to a DCC meeting at St Luke’s, which was not as much fun, mainly because we had to wear masks and sit so far apart that I couldn’t hear half of what was going on. Just as well, probably.

After the flooring was laid on Friday (they arrived early and did an excellent job), Dot went up to Homebase and bought some paint stripper and a few hooks. She’s very into hooks at the moment, and also wants to take the paint off her table in the shower room. Paul came round at 3.30pm for a chat and report on his visit to Holly and Joe in Bath. Holly has a new boyfriend called Randall, or possibly Randle. At 5pm we had wine outside with the neighbours, as the weather was unexpectedly favourable. Still had to wear coats, though. Mark is back from Alabama, where he was involved in two hurricanes. Later we had a FaceTime with David and Chrissy, who seemed quite perky.

Dot spent much of Saturday morning writing a delicate letter to Sylvia about Phyllis and her money while I attempted to change my guitar strings. Two of them broke – I think because they were old ones. I have now sent for some new ones and hope to fit them today. They arrived latish yesterday from Amazon. Had a bit of a problem with my tuner app, but I think I’ve sorted it out now.

The clocks went back on Sunday morning; so I’ve had two very bad nights. We were in good time for church: Sarah took the Communion service, and Richard Turk preached very well. Ellie made a welcome appearance, and Kim came again. Pretty full. In the afternoon Dot posted her letter and walked to the shops while I waited for the Amazon man. I was very pleased by two sporting firsts: Hamilton won the Portuguese grand prix to score the most wins ever (92 to Schumacher’s 91), and a cyclist I had only recently heard of – Tao Geoghan Hart, who somewhat surprisingly is from Hackney and has Scottish and Irish ancestry – won the Giro d’Italia, as much to his astonishment as to everyone else’s.

Yesterday brought a welcome change in the weather. It was not only dry, but reasonably mild, and I was able to do a bit of clearing up in the garden involving the ivy, and the roses encroaching on our neighbours’ extension. Not that the neighbours seem to mind – Mary and Bob are not keen gardeners. They have bought a Mazda Bongle so that they can go and see their son in Doncaster more easily, but they were having trouble yesterday putting the bed up and down. They are not exactly nimble, and it looked tricky.

We were on our way to the charity shop at the time – depositing a couple of black bags with assorted items in them. Earlier I had been up to the post office to post Amy’s birthday card: I also bought some more stamps and in the course of doing so discovered that Amy’s card needed extra postage – fortunate.

In the evening David Archer rang us from Yorkshire, where he and Bridget are on holiday. I’m not sure why they rang, but they are apparently in the Goathland/Grosmont area, which we liked very much when Julia and Dave took us there from Scarborough seven years ago. We travelled on the Sir Nigel Gresley Mallard-type steam train, and I got a good video of it.

Later in the evening we had the annual parish council meeting, on Zoom, and it lasted about half an hour because the only questions came from Tony on two obscure financial matters. As we had not see the financial statement or annual reports, we had no questions.

During the day Dot rang to complain because the flooring for our shower room was so long delayed: we were promised a ring back, but nothing happened until 9am today, when the call came from Dovetail, and we have arranged the laying of the floor for Friday afternoon. I would say that would mark the end of work in the house: Barry finished his painting and decorating last Friday, but Dot has her eyes on one or two other things. Today looks quite pleasant again – Dot has gone to the shop, but some rain is predicted for later in the day. Of course.

Yes, it’s Amy’s 16th birthday! She is at school, of course, but we left presents last time we were in Aylesbury. We have a few more, which we will deliver next Wednesday, all being well. It will be half-term.

Last Thursday we went to see Paul and Maryta, because it was Maryta’s birthday. She is pretty much the same and wanted Paul to take her for a drive before we’d finished our cups of tea/coffee and slice of Christmas cake. Ho, hum. In the evening David FaceTimed us and was much more cheerful, particularly about his business. Dot went to a PCC meeting at St Luke’s in the evening and discussed arrangements after Sarah leaves – especially for the Christmas period.

On Friday the weather was a bit better and after Barry left (fairly soon after he arrived with his bill – a reasonable £320) we went to get some petrol in the car and to drop off Dot’s old printer at Ryman’s for recycling. Her all-singing, all-dancing new one is going well. Dot also had a Zoom meeting with one of her heads which I helped her set up, and it went well.

Dot spent most of Saturday cleaning the bathroom very thoroughly, including a bit of painting (eg waste basket). Norwich managed to beat Rotherham 2-1 away with the help of an own goal, an injury time penalty by Hugill and an earlier penalty save by Krul. We listened on radio instead of paying to watch it. David FaceTimed in the evening, and we had a long chat. Some time around now we watched The Interpreter, a thriller, on Netflix starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, and it was excellent.

On Sunday we chose the hymns at church, and Dot and I did the modern version of Amazing Grace before the service (largely ignored by the chatty congregation), and at the end we sang I will show you a path, one of my songs, which seemed to go down well. Still not sure about the music arrangements: we really have too many musicians, which is an unusual problem for small church. In the afternoon we walked to the card shop to buy birthday cards for Amy and Phoebe (who is 15 tomorrow). Dot has injured knee somehow, and it was still hurting, though improved over the week. In the evening we watched two films – Sexy Beast and Rio Bravo, of which the latter was much better.

Two other things. Howard had a rethink about my poems after taking advice; so I am back to my normal circulation of single figures. And I had an e-mail from Ann Rumsby asking for information about the Howards (!) of North Walsham. After taking some time investigating and sending a number of e-mails, I discovered a site called British Phone Book, where I found some addresses that seemed relevant. I e-mailed this information to Ann, and it turned out that she already had the most relevant address and one of the others. I was not over the moon about this. Interesting, though – I stumbled on that website because we had a scam phone call earlier that used a genuine phone number in Coventry, which I looked up. Unusual in that it had the name of the subscriber and everything.

While investigating my family history material following the workshop last week, I found a notebook of my mother’s, in which she describes, day by day, visits to Harlech and Tintagel in 1936 and 1934 respectively. As they got married in 1937, these were obviously pre-wedding trips, which for some reason I found surprising. They drove to Wales, but travelled by train to Cornwall: must have been quite an expedition. There is a list of the stations they passed through.

No pandemic problems for them, though, unlike today. Everything is now quite calm in Norfolk, but in the north they are having to deal with further quite drastic restrictions on movement and behaviour. There is now a three-tier system: we are Medium, which for some reason is the lowest. Why no Low? Perhaps they prefer us to live in a state of trepidation.

It has turned rather chilly, though the temperature shows about 12-14 Celsius. We have had a great deal of rain, but today it has stopped, at least for a while. We have Barry Maskell, the singing decorator, in to do some touching up and to paint the shower room (the flooring has still not arrived). But today his wife is at the hospital having various non-Covid tests, and he will eventually have to leave and go to fetch her. Yesterday he repainted the porches, but there is some rotten wood in the front porch which he is still dealing with.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday Dot and I took part in a Zoom retreat with the memorably-named Mirabai Starr, who hails from Taos, New Mexico. It was 9am for her and 4pm for us – three hours each day. She focused on Julian of Norwich, Teresa di Avila and Hildegard von Bingen, three women mystics from the 12th, 14th and 16th century respectively. We weren’t sure it was going to be our cup of tea, but it was really good – organised mainly by the Julian Centre, featuring Howard Green in charge of Q&A. Mirabai is Jewish but has been influenced by many different traditions.

During the retreat I wrote three poems – Julian and Einstein, Dancing with Teresa di Avila and Prompt – which I sent to Howard, who unexpectedly said he would forward them to the people on the retreat, who I think number more than 100.

Earlier in the day on Friday Dot had gone with Anna to see Sylvia Ford – David’s old head teacher at Alpington Primary and niece of Phyllis Seaman at church – about Phyllis’s money. They had a full lunch, and afterwards Dot drove past our old house in Yelverton so that Anna could see it.

Earlier on the Saturday we walked up to Jarrold’s and had tea and scones in the coffee bar in the basement with Caren and Phil Gazley. Afterwards we bought me a new belt and then went into Ryman’s and bought the last printer in stock with the new ink-bottle filling system. We set it up and it is now working very well. It is Dot’s printer (in her study), but of course I can use it remotely, though I have my own.

We had a long chat with Amy on FaceTime, and in the evening watched The Searchers, a western film that I liked a lot, though it was a little uneven. It covered a lot of ground in both space and time. I think it was one of John Wayne’s first. We are in contact with Vicky about visiting Amy somewhere around her birthday, and looking for dates – assuming Amy is not in quarantine, as one of her year group has tested positive and quite a lot of classmates are off school as a result.

On Sunday we went to church, which was “packed” with 18 people (I doubt that we could take more than 20 with the restrictions currently in place). I preached about rejoicing, and Dot played violin, though not simultaneously. Martin Wyatt organised the music; so of course it was fairly upmarket. A number of us are taking it in turns to sort the music out each week. Kim Bywater from Carrie’s former book group came, as did Vicky. After the retreat we watched the grand prix and some football.

Barry made his first appearance at 8.30 on Monday, and Dot and I had to leave him to it quite soon afterwards, because we had an appointment to meet Liz Day at the Refectory for a chat. Turned out the Refectory was closed (it didn’t open till 11), and so we ended up at the Maids Head, which was excellent. Had quite a long chat with Liz about various matters – she is a Covid sceptic (in certain respects) but also is looking round for the right path for her to take church-wise. I always rather dread getting in conversation with her, because she’s so hard to pin down, but on this occasion (as on many others) we actually had a good time and a very interesting conversation. I advised her to set up a Pop-Up Wisdom website. Oh yes I did.

Later on we had a long FaceTime chat with David, who has a dodgy back and doesn’t seem too happy at the moment about Covid life and waiting for something to happen business-wise and with his residency arrangements. Dot also has pain – in her case in her knee. She rang up Verena on Tuesday and was advised to rest it. Today it is markedly better, but not perfect.

Also yesterday we started on Season Two of Veronica Mary Rolf’s podcasts, now looking at mystics in the Bible. The first one was Abram. We both dozed off momentarily in the middle. Later we had a Zoom Compline with our group (except Claire, who was at work). Had a bit of trouble setting it up, because we used Dot’s computer and I was hosting it, but I got it to work eventually.

It’s not raining at the moment, but Dot has been in the garage for most of the afternoon, sorting out once again. We’re really going to have to get rid of some stuff soon. I’ve done an article for my website, and gone through Oliver’s latest version of his personal statement, which is very good. We’re also turning the guest bedroom into a music room; so I’ve taken a few things up there. When I say “turning”, I really mean “using as”. It will still be a guest bedroom.

Last Saturday proceeded as anticipated, and I don’t just mean Norwich contriving to lose a match they dominated: 0-1 to Derby. The Zoom version of the Crabbe poetry awards went pretty well: I managed to read my poem Young Birds, which had been Highly Commended and appears in the Anthology that I received today, together with complimentary comments from judge Martin Figura. The next day £75 appeared in my account from the Suffolk Poetry Society; so I assume that was the prize. In the evening we watched North by Northwest, starring Cary Grant, which was very good. And funny.

On Sunday we went to church, and I led the service, which went pretty well. Dot played violin. The rest of the day we spent watching television. I hate it when that happens. Though I suppose I sort of like it as well.

Another rainy day on Monday. Dot visited Brooke School, which went pretty well, and called round to see Anne afterwards.

On Tuesday the weather improved slightly. I did a “workshop” on Family History organised by the Norfolk Record Office using Microsoft Teams. Went pretty well, with some good info, though not the most assured performance by the leader. Dot went for the first of her violin lessons with Anna and vowed to practise each day, which I think she has done. She is pretty enthusiastic. Later we watched a documentary about Plague Fiction, which turned out to be quite interesting, and then Billy Liar, an excellent film that was extremely funny. We were also FaceTimed by David and Chrissy: David has injured his back, but is not flat out, I’m glad to say.

Yesterday was quite sunny, which was good because I had to walk up to the dentist’s for a rather extensive filling – at least it felt extensive, but Ross said that was because it was hard to get at. It took 40 minutes and cost £374, but at least it didn’t hurt. The walk up and back was quite pleasant. Dot meanwhile was at Horstead School, enjoying a rather prolonged visit. In the evening we watched The Devil and Miss Jones, which was much better than I thought it was going to be. Very funny in places, but the ending could have been improved on.

Autumn has truly set in. it’s raining again today , and has rained just about every day since my last post. There is also a chill in the air. Last night we missed our wine-in-the-street event again. Des tried to persuade us to come out, but it was not only grey and chilly, it was also spotting with rain. Added to that I had a stomach upset earlier in the day – probably not gall bladder-related, but unpleasant – and was feeling fragile.

The upset came at lunchtime, while we were entertaining Julia and Allen Higbee. Dot did a pie with filo pastry, which was actually very nice; I don’t think it was the food that caused the problem. Other than my time upstairs, we had a good time together from 11.30 till just after 3pm.

We also binged a bit on screen-watching after they went. Two hours on a good documentary on Lawrence of Arabia, the same again on the film Cop Land, which was quite good, and another two on Vera.

We should be having our hair cut about now, but Linda postponed till Monday, which was quite a good thing, as Norwich City are playing at 12.30 – live on TV of course, because of Covid – and this afternoon at 3pm is the Zoom awards ceremony of the Crabbe Poetry Award, in which I was highly commended and have to read a poem – Young Birds.

Last Monday we had our Compline, which has reverted to Zoom because of the new restrictions (Rule of Six). I was hosting and managed to make it work after a couple of problems. Vicky had triple-booked herself, so it was a bit shorter than usual.

On Tuesday it rained most of the day. Dot had her pre-session chat with Verena on FaceTime to avoid too much interaction (!), but when she actually went to see her on Thursday it still lasted an hour (£42). I did quite a lot of work on one of the more obscure Paston “letters” – a legal document about the dispute between Sir William and Walter Aslak: 2300 words, which I completed on Wednesday. During Tuesday and Wednesday we also watched Honour, an excellent true-life drama about the killing of a Muslim girl and Enola Holmes, a Netflix film about Sherlock Holmes’ sister, which was also pretty well done.

Wednesday’s weather was a little better, but the rain returned in the evening. We went to Hobbycraft in the car and bought a carefully selected DIY frame for Roger’s picture, which we’d had professionally framed but didn’t like the result. We managed to put it together and have hung it on the stairs. The next day I hung a picture that Julia and Dave had bought us, which we also framed. It’s in the kitchen and looks pretty good.

Dot spent much of Thursday preparing for Friday’s lunch, but she did see Verena in the afternoon. I got the bus into the city and picked up the DVD of our Super 8 films (19 of them) dating back to the 1980s. I watched them while Dot was with Verena, and we both watched them again when she got back. Less than an hour in all, and some of poor quality, but definitely worth the £210 spent on getting them done. We now need to go through them and make notes about what is on them. Some of the locations are a bit obscure. As well as a continuous film (with soundtrack), they are also split up[ into 19 separate chapters, which could be useful.

In the evening we watched Bridge of Spies, an excellent film which seemed familiar in places, but I certainly don’t remember the opening sequences. David FaceTimed us later in the evening, and we had a good talk as usual.