On the brink of our holiday in Scotland: Andrew is staying with us for a couple of nights, and we’re dropping him off on the way north tomorrow afternoon. We’ve just been for a walk down the Riverside path, taking in the new bridge, and I also got him a new pair of slippers. Yesterday Phil drove me to Coventry to pick him up, and everything went pretty smoothly, except the usual Elveden chaos, which we avoided (once we could reach the roundabout) by taking the pretty route via West Stow, Ingham and Barnham.

Not much rain in the last couple of days, but it’s been very cold (for May). Still, mustn’t grumble. It will probably snow in Scotland. As I write Dot is up at the garage, who are having a second look at her car after failing to fix it yesterday. They replaced some kind of coil, but the mystery light came on again at Coltishall after her visit to North Walsham. She was not happy.

Other news this week: an unexpected pregnancy. I cannot say whose pregnancy (in the style of Walt Whitman) but it landed us a bottle of champagne, so we were delighted. At the pregnancy, too. On the same day we had a meal at Cafe Rouge with Angela and Rodney to discuss the Ethel situation, which we did. Nice meal.

Earlier in the week: on Monday I took my massive Division Two champion trophy back to the chess club and took part on the John Swan Rapidplay, where I scored a pretty normal 50%, losing to two of the joint winners and drawing with the winner of the grading prize. My best game was in fact a loss to Jeff Dawson. Found it all very tiring, though. On Wednesday I took one of my games from earlier in the season to Mike Read so that he can annotate it for En Passant (if he thinks it’s worth it). Had a cup of tea with him and indulged in a bit of nostalgia.

On Tuesday, prior to a rather depleted Tuesday Group, Caroline and Rob came here again to  discuss further the Paston event at St Peter Hungate in June. Think we’re getting there – I even sang my song, The Ballad of Gresham Town – and we decided to invite Kay to join us for our next meeting at the end of the month.