It’s Wednesday, and no progress has been made on the barge board -fascia board front. The two original guys took their gear and departed when they found asbestos in parts of the boards. The asbestos has to be tested, and if it is of a certain type, a specialist firm has to be brought in to deal with it. We await a phone call. Fortunately this should not cost us money, because it is a fixed price deal, but the delay is annoying. We still have a section of professional scaffolding fixed at the lower end, awaiting developments. Meanwhile another street light has materialised outside, and awaits recabling, when the original will be removed. I hope. And I’ve had to tackle a persistent overflow on the shower room cistern, which I’ve fixed with the help of a piece of plastic, some waterproof tape and a stone out of the back garden. It may not meet the highest of standards, but at least the water has stopped, which is a distinct plus. What next?

Yesterday, which turned out to be very warm, we decided to take a trip to North Norfolk to look at a house that had caught Dot’s eye. It looked pretty much perfect in terms of photograph and facilities, but when we got to Briston it turned out to be less than ideal, being situated down a long, narrow unmade road with a mixture of new and decaying properties on either side. No view, and not very rural. We decided to give it a miss and proceeded to Holt, where we dropped in to Larners for a reminder of what food shopping should be like and then found another nice-looking property in an estate agent’s window. It was at High Kelling, and we drove down to take a look. Liking what we saw, we managed to get an appointment there and then and looked round it. The owner was very welcoming and the house had a nice atmosphere: we liked almost everything about it, including the location. If we had sold our house and were looking, we would probably have snapped it up on the spot. In the circumstances it will probably be sold well before we get round to having ours valued. We really need to have a serious discussion about whether we do in fact want to move, and what location would be acceptable. Still, a pleasant day out. No mobile (O2) signal in High Kelling, but they do have broadband.

Woke up to rain today after we had eaten in the garden with the Tuesday Group last night: another forecast up the spout. Rushed the rubbish out (forgot last night) and prepared for a visit by a commissioning editor who was interested in Philosophy4Children in connection with producing material for school assemblies. Enjoyed a pleasant lunch with her, and things seem promising: we await her e-mail. Barbara and Sue also came to lunch and helped shape the discussion. The sun is out now, and the three of them are chatting upstairs. Too much laughter: they are having far too good a time.

Norwich won 4-0 away at Yeovil last night, thus becoming the first team in history (I suspect) to lose their first game of the season 7-1 at home and win the second 4-0 away against comparable opponents. Du different – the Norfolk motto.