Have been looking back again – well, glancing back. Discovered a Lenton Priory of Cluniac monks founded around the 12th century in the Nottingham area. Also a connection with Buckinghamshire, and there are a Scottish branch of Lentons from the Peebles area. I wouldn’t mind a Scottish connection, but the furthest back I can reasonably go is still Peterborough-Northamptonshire and the 17th century. All those agricultural labourers.

Back in the 21st century, and time keeps slipping by, far too quickly for the most part. In 16 years I shall be 80. How scary is that? I shall have to make the most of the present day. Last night spent three hours of it watching Man is Man by Brecht at the Playhouse. Fascinating stuff, beautifully put together on the whole,and yet an audience of only about 60. I can only put it down to having no-one famous from TV in the cast. Is that all people want nowadays: either famous-from-television or high culture like Shakespeare, ballet and opera? There doesn’t seem much room for cutting-edge theatre – even cutting-edge theatre that’s over half a century old. The cast was entirely female, as it happens – the kind of joke Brecht would have enjoyed. At least I imagine he would: I have my own image of him.

Earlier in the day I had some blood removed from my arm – part for the hospital to test my PSA level, and part for a research group looking at prostate cancer. For them I also had to fill in a lengthy questionnaire packed with unanswerable questions like “How many x-rays have you had, and how old were you when you had the first?” Really! I also discovered I didn’t know what hardly any of my relatives died of. Even my mother… On the way home I kept giving way to other traffic and stopped for a woman crossing the road very slowly. Got a very pleasant feeling from being in harmony with my fellow-humans. Am I cracking up?

We had seven at Tuesday Group, which is a nice number. I revealed a little of the research I had done on the Amalekites and Dot revealed her cooking expertise again. The latter was probably  – and quite rightly – appreciated more. She has been quite busy in the educational world this week. On Monday she spent a whole day on Philosophy at a Norwich school, while my contribution to the day was yet another loss at chess. Sunday was a good day: controversial sermon by Howard in the morning, followed by enthusiastic discussion about self-esteem and the nature of sin. Some frightening ideas on the latter (not from Howard). In the evening we went to an Ambient Wonder social event at the Workshop cafe-bar on Earlham Road which turned out to involve a certain amount of planning, which I was unable to put a stop to. Good time, though.

One thing I forgot to mention: yesterday a guy from the Statistics Office called and interviewed us for about 20 minutes about our lives, work, health and so on. Part of a random survey. Very pleasant guy – just right for the job. Today I finished The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry, which is a beautifully written and poignant book which left me once again despairing at what my fellow human beings do to each other. Same sort of feeling from Dances with Wolves, which we watched a few nights ago. The Guardian typically described Barry’s book as an attack on the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, but it’s actually a revelation of what happens when small-minded people get power they shouldn’t have. And there are too many small-minded people about.