Living in a rather strange world at the moment, because our heating and hot water are not working, which throws everything out. Yesterday morning, when we realised it had happened, we decided to go to Diss, which is a pretty radical solution, but there happened to be an exhibition  by Martin Laurance on at DesignerMakers21 that we wanted to see.

We took the back route, which made it quite a pleasant drive, and found the exhibition but unfortunately not Annette and Mike, who work at DM21 but were not in. The exhibition was as always good quality, but we can’t afford his work nowadays. Afterwards we crossed the road to the Corn Hall, which has been beautifully restored, to see Maggi Hambling‘s exhibition, which was even less affordable, the cheapest picture coming in at £2750. If I had £2750 to spare, I would rather buy two or three Laurance pictures than one Hambling, though they are very good.

We had a drink at the cafe and looked round the building, then walked down to the Mere, which I had never seen, despite several visits to Diss. It was really quite striking. Also called in at a lovely delicatessen before heading back to Goodies, a superb farm shop south of Long Stratton, where we stocked up a bit. Then back to a rather chilly house, where we got out the electric fire and started an actual fire, with wood we had bought at Goodies. Rather smokey, but good once it settled down.

The previous day we had also been on the road – down to Caddington for Amy’s birthday. She is 13, and we had bought her a seat from Blakeney that she had picked out when on holiday. Dot drove down and we arrived in good time to walk up to the shop and around the village a bit, getting up our walking mileage. I have now walked over two miles every day for over a week.

We stayed with Amy while Oliver went swimming (transported by David, of course),, and she showed tremendous flair as always in redesigning her room. I found a story I had written her years ago c called Amy and the Runaway Dream, which I read to her while lying on the floor. It brought home two me (a) that it was quite a clever story and (b) that it was very hard to speak while lying on my back because of the catarrh that has plagued me for weeks, if not months.

Dot had made a cake for Amy, and we ate it when the boys returned. We then headed back to Norwich with me driving, and arrived just after 11.30pm. It had been very windy all day, and by late evening it was very cold too, as it still is this morning.

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, I went to my second Jurnet’s poetry night and read two old poems, Pick-up-sticks and All this death. Generally speaking the quality of poetry was much higher than last time. Rupert and Hilary were both there.

At the moment we’re waiting for the British Gas engineer – at least Dot is: she is staying home while I go to church, partly because it means she can watch the Ipswich-Norwich match on Sky (her phone). It’s an ill wind…