Norwich Cathedral in a sunset sky, taken from our bedroom window and later cropped and straightened! See also Flickr and Cathedral website.

Rather a dismal week, weather-wise, with plenty of rain – especially today, when I went up to the hospital with Dot for my pre-operation assessment. Cyclist nurse Liz very pleasant, with a sense of humour. Everything seems OK, but her warnings of what might follow the operation were a little worrying. I don’t really even want to think about catheters and various other tubes draining things from my body. Still, It’ll all be over by Christmas. Came to the sad conclusion that I will not be able to go to Blakeney for the annual reunion in a couple of weeks’ time.

On Tuesday we had a good gathering for our meal (10, with us), and Dot came up with a scintillating starter involving pears, rocket, watercress, mayonnaise and roquefort cheese sauce. Yes, it was a Delia special. Delicious. On Wednesday, stomach juices on alert again: we went with Jessie to the Rushcutters for lunch, and I had a beef and ale pie that was gorgeous. Yesterday the weather relented a bit and we did a few things that had been waiting for a while: took some rubbish to the tip, some other stuff to a charity shop and booked the MX5 in for an MOT and the Mazda 3 for new tyres at some totally horrendous price approximating to £450. You could get nine tanks of petrol for that.

Parked in the city and had lunch at the Espresso in John Lewis – a favourite place for sandwiches and a cup of tea – or in Dot’s case a large piece of cake and a cup of tea. Then bought me a dressing gown for hospital, a new mobile phone for Dot and picked up tickets from the Theatre Royal box office. These were for an Agatha Christie play in the evening – And Then There Were None, the politically correct new title for Ten Little …. Unusual play in that everyone did it. Theatre sparsely populated: started pouring with rain as we walked home, but we made it without getting soaked.