Beautiful day, but cold. To celebrate Jessie’s birthday, she took her niece Dot and me, with her son Roger and her friends Janet and Ray, to Elderton Lodge for lunch. Lovely setting: deer in the park, folly in the distance. Meal was delicious: I had game and duck terrine, followed by game casserole with short crust pastry and a fantastic Eton mess dessert. The wine was good too. Afterwards we repaired to North Walsham, where I had another cup of tea and Jessie (pictured) tried to make us eat even more – unsuccessfully, in my case. Left just after five to pick up my car from the garage, where it was having its wing mirrors replaced.

You may wonder why it was having its wing mirrors replaced. I woke on Monday morning, after winning a long chess game the previous night, and found both mirrors smashed, and bits scattered around the path and road. As I was taking pictures Sam, who lives at Number 15 and has a two-year-old called Ellie, told me she had seen a gang of five youths running up the road at 1.30am and kicking all the cars, then wrenching off my wing mirrors. She yelled at them, but they just made a rude gesture at her and ran off. I reported it to the police and had my fingerprints taken for elimination purposes (I had handled the pieces from the wing mirrors). I believe the police have also spoken to Sam. Obviously they dusted the pieces for fingerprints as well, but I’m not optimistic. I rang the garage and discovered the mirrors would cost £260 to replace. As I have a £250 excess on my insurance, it was clearly a waste of time making a claim. So the vandals owe me £260. Fat chance. Tonight the car is in the drive. It is only six months since it was badly damaged by vandals climbing over it and denting it.

I’ve made entries to several competitions – mostly poems but also a short play and a short short story. These range from Kent through Wales and Ireland to Scotland, so I am casting my net wide. I’ve also entered the annual Norwich Writers’ Circle poetry competition. Well, you have to give it a go. Today we picked up the printing for Dot’s workshop next week. All looked very good until we noticed that a number of apostrophes hadn’t printed. As it was done through PDF files, I can’t understand how this could have happened, but Dot will give them a ring tomorrow. It’s not a complete disaster, because it’s easy enough to insert the apostrophes without making a mess, but it would be tedious. Dot is working extremely hard on her Philosophy material and had another two people sign up for her workshop today.

Through a Genes Reunited contact I have discovered that my mother’s grandfather and great-grandfather came from Sussex. Her grandfather, Charles Brown, lived in Brighton and then moved to Cambridgeshire, where he was head gardener at Hall Lodge, Milton, and married a local woman. My mother’s father was also a gardener, so I guess the skill was handed down. Her great-grandfather, Henry, was an agricultural labourer. So many agricultural labourers in my family tree… All ploughing the same furrow.