We ended our stay in Ontario with a delicious fillet steak sandwich lunch (B Murray), then were driven to the airport, where everything went smoothly again – in fact even more smoothly, because Canadians are less up themselves than the English. Through security very quickly and without taking our shoes off. Coffee at Tim Horton’s, then I bought a wallet (because my other one was falling apart) and a thriller to read while enduring the endless waiting that is synonymous with airports. Plane took off on time, and despite the lack of a tailwind, was only late at Heathrow because it had to circle a couple of times. Scheduled for 0625, we eventually landed about 0640, and then had to wait ages in the plane for buses to take us to the terminal. The plus side was that when we eventually reached the baggage hall, our luggage was already there. Food pretty good on plane again, and I watched Angels and Demons, though of course you don’t get the full impact on a small screen and with interruptions. As I’d read the book, this didn’t matter much. It was OK.

Heathrow Express, Paddington station, and £25 for a taxi through the rush hour to Liverpool Street, with a driver who really had a lot to complain about. He must have been happy about something, but we didn’t discover what. Basically, too many roadworks in London, and most of them cosmetic. I paraphrase. Still he was kind enough to drive us right into the station (another £1 or so). We grabbed a baguette and tea / coffee, and then made the mistake of getting on the 9am to Norwich. It turned out this wasn’t off-peak – although I would have thought all the rush-hour traffic was coming the other way – so we had to pay another £26 each or get off at Shenfield for an hour. I couldn’t face Shenfield for an hour, but this added about 50% to the total return fare. Grrrr. Got revenge by not buying anything from the refreshment trolley. Arrived Norwich just before 11am, which meant TM was not really ready for us and hadn’t quite finished clearing up. Entropy had taken place on a large scale: the oven had become totally messed up and took well over an hour to clean; the car battery had gone dead, and we had to call out Mazda Assistance; a brick had fallen out of the wall on the steps for no apparent reason; the milkman hadn’t delivered the food we thought we’d ordered; and neither Tweetie nor Apple TV was working (both now fixed).

After the Mazda man fixed the battery, I took TM for a 40-minute ride to charge it up and then delivered him home with his various parcels. He is moving to a new place tomorrow. Later I delivered Phil’s birthday present. I was in pretty much of a haze all this time, but we did manage to unpack and do a few essential things before falling into bed about 8.45pm – which, if I’m not mistaken, was roughly 32 hours since we’d got up. Yes, I did manage about ten minutes to half an hour’s sleep on the plane…

Got a good sleep, unsurprisingly, and got up on Saturday  about 9.30 to have our hair cut. Did not do much else all day except start to go through the post and answer some e-mails. Oh, and I watched a couple of rugby matches: an exciting win by Ireland against Wales and a tryless bore draw between England and Scotland. Plus a little more TV. Dot went to the shop and cooked a delicious salmon meal not unlike one we had in Canada, but closer to home. To our astonishment, it was suddenly 10pm. It felt like about 6pm. I wonder why.

Another reasonably good night, but woke up feeling tired again, though with an improved head (not before time, some might say). Happily both cars were working, so I went early to church to fix everything up, and Dot followed. Very small congregation – not dwarves, just few people. The Rev Peter Varney was guesting, and Dot and I were the music group. Rather strange service – still feel a bit disconnected from reality, and we’re off to evening meal with the Medionis in an hour’s time. As they’re French and Italian, it probably doesn’t matter. Oh, yes: we’ve booked a plane to Venice for June. Dot did the research, and it seemed the cheapest option as well as the easiest. We fly from Norwich and change at Amsterdam. Coming back, same thing, but from Florence instead of Venice.