The heat is on again – by which I mean the temperature is up, and there’s a warm wind. Apparently this is related to a hurricane on its way across the Atlantic, but we should be far enough away from it not to suffer too much. Meanwhile, today has been very pleasant, and we’ve been to see Jessie again – she seems pretty well – taking in a visit to Sainsburys. She has quite a few visitors, and Roger is back from Cornwall. He took her to Walcott yesterday.

Dot has taken to clearing the loft again, which means there’s lots of random stuff lying around, including quite a bit I don’t remember seeing ever. Could someone have been breaking into our loft and leaving electrical equipment in there?

Back to last Wednesday: Naomi turned up for afternoon tea, and stayed till around 5.30pm, thanks to our fascinating conversation (actually she is very interesting to talk to). The next day I popped up to the Castle to check arrangements for the weekend (for which, read on)  with various staff, including Anna McCarthy and Dannielle and Annie. This was followed by a  hearing test at Boots, which was done by Rachel Raven, who is very jolly and comes from Bungay, though with a personality and name like that, she should be the heroine of a Mills and Boone novel.

Turns out I have moderate hearing loss, but excellent cognition. I don’t know whether to be overjoyed or disappointed. Anyway, she wants me to return with Dot so that I can try out a hearing aid in a crowded mall or restaurant. It may help a lot, or it may not. Back at our house, the new vicar came for a cup of tea, and we had an interesting talk.

Saturday was the big day: I started by going up to the Castle to hear Liz McDonald speak on Margaret Mautby-Paston. Pretty good: afterwards I chatted with her and with David Archer, and with Anna and Annie, who was leading the exhibition tour later. I then had a rather lifeless scone and some crips (plus an excellent cup of tea) from the Castle café, which is still not sure whether it wants to be eccentric or just plain inefficient, or both. Later I met Jude and a friend, which was nice.

My main purpose in being there was to lead a group round some Paston sites in the city, but there was some confusion about how long this walk would be, how many could join in and where I should take them. Apparently it was originally arranged by Lucy, then superseded, then resurfaced after something else was cancelled. I was a bit concerned that the numbers would be huge, but in the end it turned out I had about 16, which was OK.

We took in the market, the Guildhall, St Andrew’s Hall, St Peter Hungate, the Paston house on Elm Hill, the Maids Head, Whitefriars and the Cathedral, which wasn’t bad for 45 minutes. In fact it was 90 minutes, and a few had finished early and slipped off (after apologising). All went really well, on the whole. Meanwhile Dot was watching Norwich City beat Middlesbrough 1-0; so that was good too.

Yesterday I was leading the service and preaching, because Phil was away. Went pretty well. Afterwards Dot and I church-sat, because it was heritage weekend. Had a couple of interesting conversations, and met someone who was born in Earlham Hall, as I was. A couple of children (brother and sister) played hide-and-seek in the church while we were there – Leroy and Stella, who I misheard as Levi and Sarah, possibly because I thought subliminally that children playing in church should have biblical names, but more likely because of my hearing problem. We suspect that they stole a couple of quid from the donation jar, but they disappeared after that. I had a good look round the back of the church and discovered a door in the wall. It didn’t go through to the inside, but I guess  there’s a kind of storage cupboard there.

Afterwards I wrote a poem.