House feels very empty today. Dot is out working under her free governor’s hat, I haven’t done much except put a BBC producer in touch with a St Peter Hungate trustee, and David and the children are back home (or in two cases, at school). They arrived here on Thursday, and we had a relaxing three days, because it was too cold to do anything much outdoors. Nevertheless Oliver and I did manage a lovely 2½-mile walk up through the cemetery and Lion Wood, while Dot and Amy went shopping and David ventured into the city.

We also fitted in a very nice lunch at Prezzos on the Saturday, before listening to Norwich beat Everton 2-1 with a goal in the last seconds. Amy and Dot made a cake, and several games were played. Oliver is progressing well with his chess. He took away my old iMac: not sure his father was overjoyed by this idea, because it’s quite big, but Oliver seemed happy enough, though Amy wanted half of it to go with the new clothes Nana had bought her. Both children still delightful and growing up quickly: both enjoy writing and are creative as well as lovely. After a bit of uncertainty, they left at around 7pm on the Saturday and had a straightforward journey home.

Sunday featured the first of our projected post-service talks, and it was an impressive start. Louise Øhrstrøm spoke on St Julian, who she has translated into Danish, and there must have been about 60 people there, about a third of whom attended the Communion beforehand. Nicholas was in his impresario mood, which I have to say he does very well. Louise’s talk was very good, despite being quite difficult to listen to because foreigners, however good their English, always have a different intonation and flow. Good response generally.

Earlier in the week, on Wednesday, we had an evening meal with the Higbees at Newton Flotman after having difficulty getting out of Norwich because of road works on King Street, creating traffic jams. Not feeling at my best ( I was a bit below par all week), but an enjoyable time as always.

Have finished Into the Silence, a book by Wade Davis on the attempts on Everest in the 1920s. Fascinating stuff and very thorough research. I learnt a lot about Tibet and the huge organisation that seemed to be required to even get near the mountain. The book casts doubt on several reputations, and makes others. The early section on the Great War left me extremely angry at the arrogant  incompetence of the generals, especially Haig, but there was plenty of incompetence during the Everest expedition, not least from the people organising it safely at home (as Haig was safely behind the lines).

Having read the book, I doubt that Mallory and irvine reached the summit, though it’s not totally impossible. Amazing that Reinhold Messner (my favourite mountaineer) did the whole thing on his own without oxygen in 1980.