End of an era. The wee house at Ballater has been sold – back to the council from whom it was originally bought. One can only hope they now do something constructive with the whole site. Today we received a parcel from Ella with a memento: a small column with a Farquharson crest on it. It will be really strange being somewhere else in Ballater. It’s like losing a home: we had become so familiar with it.

Meanwhile, Dot was sitting in the garden during a momentary burst of sunshine and slight heat yesterday  when a Wildlife vehicle backed into our wall. No damage this time, but it heightens our suspicions that the fallen section mentioned earlier was indeed provoked by a collision. Maybe the cutting back of the hedge makes it easier for the rear of vehicles to reach the wall. Unexpected consequence. No word from NWT yet.

It seems a long time ago now, but David and the children left last Thursday after a really nice few days, and our ex-best man Fred arrived around 7pm the same day, staying the night so that we could all go the CNS Old Boys’ event at Dragon Hall the next morning. The latter was sunny but still pretty chilly, but it all went well. Dot immediately met someone she knew: Mary Thrower, who plays clarinet in the same orchestra as her. She is the wife of former classmate Neville, who I never knew all that well.

Adrian O’dell, the organiser of all this reunion stuff, gave us a tour of the Hall that was surprisingly informative, and we then had a talk from Peter Bussey on the Large Hadron Collider, where he has worked. He did well with a difficult subject, but it left our brains a little fuzzy. Then on to Yellows for a meal that was described later as “not quite Premier League”. But the company was good. As well as Fred, we spoke to (the Rev) Graham Drake, and others including Barnard, Chadwick and Cowell from the L stream.

We spent the rest of the day recovering from the food (amount rather than quality), but on Saturday we were out again – first at Winterton, looking unsuccessfully for an earring that Dot had lost earlier in the week, and later at the Kibbles’, where the conversation is even more filling than the food. The next two or three days were spent catching up with things that had been set aside while the grandchildren were here and exciting things were happening: I caught up with some Chronicle stuff and sent a potential blog to B J Epstein at the UEA. I was quite pleased with it, but I haven’t heard back.

Yesterday I struggled to get out of Norwich for a Chronicle meeting at Kay’s. Big hold-ups on the inner ring road and on the Aylsham road; so I diverted on to the Reepham Road and approached Wood Dalling from behind, as it were. Happily I was able to find Kay’s rather remote cottage without much trouble. We spent much of the meeting discussing the potential recording of a CD, and we did trial recordings of small sections that worked well in the end, after David (Kay’s husband) struggled to make the machine work properly. And he’s an expert. Why is sound technology so difficult?

We also talked about out plans for the year and allocated a few tasks. I am producing a script for Dragon Hall and printing some letters for reading at Paston Church at the open day in a couple of weeks’ time. We also fixed a date for rehearsal, which is good.

Now I am about to have my hair cut by Linda, then my shoulder massaged by Sharon. One of my better days.