Beautiful sunny winter’s day today, but not so much fun in the Thames Valley, where they have “the worst floods in a decade”. It may be because I’m getting old, but a decade doesn’t seem very long to me. Still, the flood are very bad (I’ve seen the pictures), and we’re fortunate to have avoided so much of the stormy weather. The United states is bitterly cold, with creeping ice (I’ve seen the video).
Dot is up at the surgery with the nurse, looking at the results of her blood test, and is intending to walk home. I’m standing by to pick her up in case of sudden rain or sudden tiredness. My own car us in the garage, having at last had its air conditioning fixed (I hope). This morning, after dropping it off, I walked to the chemist’s in Heartsease to pick my pills up – a distance of well over four miles. While at Heartsease waiting for the bus home I ran into Diane Bowman and Philip Mason, which just goes to show.
Yesterday we had a meeting of the Paston trustees at Mundesley. I chaired it in the absence of Rob, and there was lengthy discussion on the accounts, with Lucy and Peter failing to find common ground until I realised that the critical issue was not VAT, but Lucy’s failure to count one of the invoices, which she had received by e-mail but not been able to open (and therefore ignored).
The rest was straightforward, but afterwards Lucy told me that John Care had just died, and Naomi was in a mental hospital in London, having had a kind of nervous breakdown. She (Lucy) also has a chest infection. Life is never straightforward for her.
The previous day, while Dot was at Park Farm, I walked to the Ruchcutters for a meeting with Joy, publisher Adrian and printer Nick Gorvin about the tanka book. Very pleasant time, quite a bit of which was spent talking about chess, since three of us coincidentally were chess players. Had a Caesar salad and chips (!), then walked home after dallying for a while by the river with Joy. In the evening Dot had a particularly good orchestra session.
On Tuesday, before pea soup with the Tuesday Group, Rob called in to discuss the agenda for the Paston meeting and stayed for tea and biscuits.
Sunday and Monday were rather strange for me, because Dot had a P4C session at Stowmarket starting early on the Monday; so she stayed at Barbara’s overnight. As usual, I had loads of time to get things done and failed to do so. I did go out for a walk on the Monday, though. The P4C was as always very well received. Dot is a bit of a star, really.