Rather damp this week. Take yesterday, for example. Paul and I started early at the Mousehold pitch and putt to avoid forecast rain from noon, and it all worked well, except that I played abominably, apart from one rather good pitch out of a bunker. Felt exhausted at the end, though. It did rain quite a lot in the afternoon, and on the road to Halesworth in the evening there was a lot of water on the road.

There was a smaller attendance than usual at Pinky’s, and I read three poems: Ghosts walking (which I’d written a few hours before), Gardener’s cottage and one that will probably be called Fences, which goes back to when I was 15: clearly this had been inspired by Oliver becoming 15 on Monday. Nina (Roffey) said I sounded melancholy, and I wondered if it was the beta blockers. I also forgot my glasses and had to borrow Kaaren’s.

I was prescribed the beta blockers on Tuesday by Dr Nene, after a brief discussion during which I became less and less coherent – and that was to me. I refused to go back on the Amlodopine, but my blood pressure was something like 160/116, which didn’t help. He wasn’t interested in any of my symptoms. I have now ordered a blood pressure monitor from Amazon, on the advice of my friend Joy, England’s quintessential tanka poet, who also used to be an iconic nurse. She took my blood pressure on Wednesday when I had lunch with her, and she said it was 120/70. Can that be possible?

We had a long talk about life, the universe and anything, and I’m supposed to write to Adrian about our joint book, but my first attempt has failed to deliver, which seems ominous, since I used his company address.

Another failure on Thursday: we were intending to visit Kristine and David and hesitated till the last minute because Dot had not been feeling well and was having stomach issues. In the end we put it off till Monday, and I did my tax return.

I omitted to mention that I went to a Cake and Compline event at Claire’s on Tuesday, giving Judy a lift. Dot went to the Norwich City match against Burton, which resulted in a  0-0 draw. It was windy and wet, but I had some excellent jam tarts at Claire’s. Dot is now preparing a meal for tonight, when the Hendersons are visiting.