Winter has returned, albeit a bit later than forecast. A fair bit of snow on the ground last night, which deterred Sam from completing his journey from Birmingham, where he had been attending a Christian Writers’ Conference with Joe and Birgit. He made it as far back as Joe’s and wisely decided to stay the night there.

Earlier in the day I had walked up to Holy Trinity through a mixture of snow and rain to attend Jan Miller’s memorial service: quite an inspiring one – very well organised in a Holy Trinity sort of way. Hardly anyone there I knew, so I didn’t stay for refreshments. Even harder snow and rain on the way back, but all good for my walking programme. Today is the first day I haven’t done at least half an hour for a couple of weeks. That’s because it’s still very cold, with a mixture of snow and rain falling, though the snow that laid last night has largely vanished; so I imagine Sam will eventually make it.

He is visiting his parents, as he had been signed off work for a couple of weeks. On Thursday I took them to the doctors and left them there for about 90 minutes before being recalled to fetch them. I have to say neither of them looked particularly well.

The day before, I had another of my longer walks, dropping off some cash at Ian’s before heading into town for a cafe conversation on translation at the White Lion Cafe. Happily Adrian was there again, and the session was good too, by Dr B J Epstein of the UEA. Some interesting ideas, and practical too. I think it was aimed mainly at people considering doing translation, but that’s not really in my mind. Still it inspired an article and a poem for my website.

I’m also reading the latest biography of Leonard Cohen (I’m Your Man), which is beautifully written and easy to read, as well as revealing some unexpected details about him, such as the huge amount of drugs he took. A combination of that and the translation session inspired me to want to write more poems, though not to take more drugs.