This is the bowl that Allan Higbee made for us for our ruby wedding anniversary. We also received a lovely orchid from Hazel Savigny, some roses from the Coomes, a lovely bottle of Benedictine in a spectacular tin from Dave and Julia, three bottles of wine and three bottles of champagne, among other things. If this is what happens when you say “no presents”, I wonder what might have happened if we hadn’t. People are very kind.

Have had a lot of frustration in the last few days with my broadband connection, which comes and goes at random. When it’s on, it’s often very slow, and will drift in and out constantly. It was off all day Saturday. I haven’t got anywhere with BT yet, but I discovered from Martin, who lives opposite, that he and others nearby have been having similar problems. I am writing this blog on TextEdit and will paste it in when I can catch the connection. It seems to be on at the moment, but… anyway, it won’t matter after Wednesday, when the Large Hadron Collider experiment in Switzerland will probably create a black hole that will destroy the world, or at least disrupt our holiday on Swiss railways later this month. I’m looking on the pessimistic side, of course. Alternatively, it may reveal new secrets about the universe.

Our hedge has had its annual clipping, together with much else in the garden. Let Colin loose with a pair of clippers, and nothing is safe. Result: the house seems much lighter and the garden has that “just had a haircut” feel, which is actually good. Colin is coming again next month to do some more work, Large Hadron Collider permitting.

On Friday, while Dot visited her aunt in Hethersett, I went to a chess simultaneous display at St John’s Cathedral, which was supposed to be given by Owen Hindle, but he had to go to Scotland because of family illness, and David LeMoir took on 32 people instead – in aid of John Charman, a leading light in Norfolk chess and editor of En Passant. I arrived at about 7.15pm and stayed for just over two hours, by which time he’d beaten two people. I could see it lasting long into the night, so I came home. Nice to see some familiar faces, though. Back into the new season tonight, when I play Chris Tuffin in the club knockout competition. He’s a hard man to beat.

I’m getting nearer to completing a book I’m putting together for Oliver’s birthday, combining my first Little story with some photographs, most of which are in place. I have to take a few more, but the weather is not good. It’s grey again today, with occasional light drizzle, which is not good photography weather. Hope the sun might break through this afternoon.

Nicholas preached a good sermon on prayer yesterday, and we stayed for church lunch. In the evening we also went to the Ambient Wonder review meeting, when “wine and nibbles” turned out to be a full-scale buffet. Pity we’d just had a normal-sized tea…