Surprisingly, I finished Amy’s story shortly after my last post: it all came to me in a flash, just before Tuesday Group. I posted it off the next day, together with the last Little story in booklet form. I’ve also managed to write nearly two poems for Ian Fosten, so things are looking up. However, I’ve not been feeling good for a while: intermittent bursts of feeling quite peculiar, involving head and stomach and chills. Have managed to keep going with paracetamol, and much of the time I’m OK. But it keeps coming back. Not for long, I hope.

Happily Dot’s dizziness has gone. We suspect that the doctor got rid of it when she did the famous manoeuvre early last week. When Dot returned on Friday, she did it again and found that the revealing eye-fluttering had gone and she was OK – just in time for a full weekend, that started with a meal at the Robinsons in their shiny new reconstructed house.

I see I have got all out of order here. Back to Wednesday, when we had our hair done and I went to the dentist for a filling, then headed straight to Jessie’s with Dot. Last of the mince pies – or so I thought. The following day we depended on the weather forecast and were rewarded. Despite a heavy grey sky and some rain we drove to Bodham, where we had a drink at the Red Hart before heading off across the fields to Baconsthorpe Castle on one of the Coast Partnership’s trial walks. The sky quickly cleared and became bright blue, which compensated for the chill in the air.

At the castle we managed to go wrong –  mainly because we’d been there before and didn’t read the directions very carefully. We reached the village by the wrong path and headed into uncharted territory – uncharted by us or the Coast Partnership, that is. We couldn’t make sense of the instructions, but relied on our sense of direction and found an alternative footpath that took us back to the castle, where it became apparent what had happened. Now on the right track, we proceeded wearily back to Bodham – 5-6 miles in all.

We spent the weekend with David and Kristine, arriving just before noon at Leyton after a smooth journey. Kristine produced a delicious Spanish crumble with chorizo sausages that would probably have been enough for the rest of the day; however, we went to Baharat Indian restaurant in the evening and had another large meal. In between, we took the tube to Bank, discovered the Northern Line was shut and spent some time walking in Bank station before we could find the way out on to the street. (Several other people were having the same problem – signs were hopeless.) Eventually we made it out and walked past Monument and across London Bridge before visiting a bookstore near David’s office.

Lovely area of London that we hadn’t visited before. We proceeded on to Tower Bridge and had tea/coffee in a busy place much frequented by David before heading for home by crossing Tower Bridge and catching the tube outside the Tower of London. Lovely day, and a beautiful, busy evening. Didn’t sleep all that well, however.

The next day we drove up to Spellbrook Three Horseshoes and experienced the slowest service anywhere in the world (possibly). Arriving just before 1pm, we met Phil, Jane, Lydia and Alistair, and then David, who had driven up from Caddington. It reached 2.30pm before our main course was served. We abandoned the potential dessert and drove to Phil Coomes’ house for Christmas cake and mince pie.

Today was Frank Mason’s funeral, and David had another long drive to arrive in good time to get to St Faith’s Crematorium with us. Nice service: afterwards most of the attendees joined Jessie and Roger at Elm Tree Farm for refreshments. Teresa was there, as were all the usual suspects. Afterwards we drove David back to ours for his return journey before joining Jessie and Liz at Roger’s for a chat and the odd drink. Later Liz left for another appointment (her daughter’s birthday celebration, I think), and the four of us ended up at Oaklands Hotel for a carvery. That wasn’t our intention, but the “proper” restaurant opened an hour later than its website promised. Nice rhubarb crumble to finish. Pretty tired now.