Awaiting the arrival of David and grandchildren: weather mild. Have just been out briefly to book Prezzo’s for lunch tomorrow. Earlier I cleared up some more leaves: I’m becoming something of an expert. Last night was a big success: for Dot’s birthday dinner we went with the Robinsons to the Norfolk Mead hotel at Coltishall and had an excellent meal. Also very relaxed and quiet, so pretty well perfect. Afterwards we came out to see a sky full of bright stars. Magical.

Have just finished my talk for Sunday on Christ the King. Found it difficult to prepare, because I kept getting bogged down in fascinating byways as to the true meaning of certain words in the Hebrew and Aramaic. Have rewritten first verse of Genesis to read: At source, God filled the skies and the earth as an ox moving the plough towards its mark. Not exactly traditional; I may not mention it tomorrow. On the other hand…

Managed to draw my chess game on Wednesday by winning a pawn in the opening and getting a big advantage, then letting my opponent off the hook. Quite happy really, because he’s graded higher than me. Drove the entire team down there, so very late back. Meanwhile, Dot went to a DCC meeting, so she had to tell me all about it. Result: very late in bed.

Lots of activity on internet about leaked e-mails from UEA climate scientists which seem to reveal fiddling of data and some rather unpleasant tactics to silence sceptics. Phil Jones of UEA has apparently admitted they’re genuine. Will be interesting to see how the BBC manages to ignore this. By ignoring it, I suppose.