Summer lingers on, though there’s a touch of autumn in the air. Today we had our hedge cut by Colin, after a slight alarm when the Norfolk Wildlife Trust said they had no-one to open the gate. Bet they’d have found someone if a great-crested newt was in trouble. Anyway, Colin managed by climbing over the wall and erecting his platform, assisted by his son Jordan, one of Dot’s former pupils.

Also this morning Paston Heritage Society’s UEA intern David Whittle dropped in to pick up leaflets for distribution. At least, that’s what I thought he was doing, but he stayed for a good while, consuming tea and biscuits and taking notes. Dot is now out on the town with Anne, and tonight we’re going to an organ concert at St Andrew’s Hall, featuring the Mozart Orchestra.

The car’s air-conditioning is still unfixed. The garage had the car most of Tuesday, then rang me to say the compressor they’d ordered didn’t fit. And so it goes on. I’d walked back home from the garage, calling on Nicholas to get him to sign some cheques and then at the church hall to read the meter and retrieve last Sunday’s collection. After happening on Phil at Fye Bridge and reporting on Andrew’s condition, I was rather late home and had to rush to Dragon Hall for a talk on Robert Toppes that turned out to be very good. Some Paston references, so I bought the book.

The Seagull had an unusual weekday version of their poetry and music event on Thursday:  Dot and I (she “fresh” from a DSSO day at Letton Hall) went, and I read three poems I had written based on our stay in Yorkshire. Dot also helped read a couple of tanka strings.

On Friday we both went to Hethersett to pick up some of the last stuff from A Ethel’s bungalow. My last visit, so I took a couple of pictures: amazing how big the rooms seemed. Afterwards we went to Park Farm for lunch and glimpsed chess player Steve Moore also partaking. Dot went on to one of her schools at Tasburgh, while I fulfilled my mission of getting her pills from the chemist.

Tomorrow we will visit A Jessie, so it is imperative we locate the missing photographs that she’s asked for. They are in the house somewhere…