Very sweet week. On Monday Dot went to three schools and collected a great deal of sugar. Sugar is heavy. I had pumped up the back tyres to prepare for it, happily. When she got home we made the mistake of transferring it (very carefully) to the garage, but it was actually collected from us later (or was it the next day?). So quite a bit of lifting going on.

Further sugar was collected on Wednesday, and we drove it out to Helen’s house in late afternoon. Very nice place they have – huge amount of ground and a lovely house too. I was wandering around the estate waiting for Helen to arrive when I was summoned by Dot’s horn: apparently Helen had been there all along (and her husband). More lifting. Fortunately I had had my eyes tested earlier in the day and passed fit. I had also done a bit of shopping.

(I should mention that the sugar came from schools that were collecting it for charity. It eventually makes its way to shelters for the homeless.)

On Tuesday Dot and I went to the pensioners’ canteen lunch, which was quite pleasant. Some current workers were also eating Christmas lunches in the canteen, no doubt passing comment on us old fogeys, or at least eyeing us askance. Afterwards Dot and I did a bit more shopping and paid in one of her cheques.

In the evening we went to a Julian session at the Greens’. Howard was ill and so retired to bed, but  Anna  produced some delicious mulled cider. The discussion was good too.

Yesterday was very tense, because neither the computer nor the printer would work properly. For some reason the computer was painfully slow whether or not I was working online, and the printer came up with a similar problem that I had with the earlier one. Happily both problems have been solved, I think. I have put some new cartridges in the printer (I suspect the old ones were faulty) and reinstalled the driver. The computer seems to be OK this morning: I suspect the problem was caused by a fault on Photos that was causing a loop. Of course all that may be nonsense, but it’s what I think. It may all go south again, as the Americans say.

Today I am off to the official Archant Christmas meal at the Holiday Inn. But before that I have to adjust the tyres on the car and hoover out some stray sugar.