It’s one of those weekends: Dot is in Hounslow preparing for a morning of philosophy training at a school there tomorrow, and I’m home alone, having led the service this morning and played a couple of my new songs for Phil, who was his usual uncritical self. I now have to record them for him. The most recent song is called Here I am, and I think it works quite well.

Yesterday Dot and I took some flowers to the cemetery at North Walsham and then drove on to Happisburgh where, after pausing for coffee/cider and a sandwich at the Lighthouse pub, we walked along the clifftop towards Cart Gap. We didn’t walk all the way there, which was a pity as we would have seen a shipwreck (a yacht had hit the groynes with disastrous results). Instead we turned inland and did a circuit, walking close to the actual lighthouse and then close to the edge of the cliff on the north side of the car park.

The sea was calm and the weather well nigh perfect for there end of October – and indeed the end of British Summer Time.

The previous day I had an engagement in the Cathedral Refectory, where I backed up Karen Smyth in a meeting designed to persuade the Cathedral to embrace the Paston Footprints project. It seemed to go pretty well, considering Karen had just come out of hospital after breaking bones in her neck. Present from the Cathedral: two clergy (Andy Bryant and Peter Doll), Gudrun Warren, the librarian; and Kristi Bain, the parish outreach officer.

On Thursday I did my final two interviews for the Magazine article: the first victim was Sybil Martin at Wymondham Abbey, where considerable user-friendly work had been done, courtesy of a marge Heritage Lottery Fund grant. I was much impressed. Sybil was quite impressive too, getting on in years (of course) but very lively and busy. Friendly too.

Later I went to see Matthew Hutton at Chedgrave, who was the kind of guy you’d expect to see on quangos: a farmer, solicitor, tax expert, author and curate. Nevertheless he was quite amenable, though clearly full of ideas. He would probably have liked to write the article himself. He lives at a beautiful spot between Thurton and Loddon.

I have written some of the article and have all the material I need. I now need to get down to finishing it.