And continuing the theme, here is my cousin Pat at her surprise 60th birthday party. Especially surprising as she’s not 60 yet: I do know when her birthday is, but I can’t reveal it in case everyone who reads this sends her a present. I mean, what would she do with two presents?

Yesterday InPrint did a poetry reading at The Minories (firstsite) in Colchester, and the four poets departed from Norwich – with friend Julie – on the 4pm train, picking up artist Annette at Diss. The walk from the station at Colchester took about 40 minutes and included quite a steep hill, which was invigorating, especially as the weather was literally freezing. The Minories was very welcoming, and there were refreshments, including mince pies. The reading itself was fun , all of us reading five or six poems in all to an audience of about a dozen – which is pretty good, and 12 more than none at all.

After posing for pictures at the end we made our way to the station – Rupert going on ahead because he had to make a connection at Norwich. We thought this was being a bit too careful, but as it turned out, it was merely prudent. Caroline and I, walking briskly, joined him with five minutes or so to spare, but the other three, who started off just behind us, dropped back so much that they went the wrong way – which was not easy, as it was a straight road. After a phone call they got back on track, but we still thought they hadn’t made it. But they jumped on by the skin of their teeth (unfortunately no photo) and in a packed train we managed to get quite close to each other.

A pleasant excursion: we munched mince pies from a goodie bag and got back to Norwich about 9pm.

Today was still cold. I managed to catch up with quite a bit of stuff – the poetry leaflet didn’t make it – and picked up the pictures I’d bought from Bally. Wrote some more Christmas cards and ordered my Christmas present – a camera – from Amazon, after discovering I would get triple Nectar points, whatever they are. Took a Christmas present up to Menita and Regis and picked up six bottles of wine they’d brought from France for us. Fortunately I had enough cash with me, because I’d forgotten about it. Dot left for Newmarket, where she’s doing a church school inspection tomorrow, about 3.30, and I wrote most of my page for the EDP. Tomorrow I need to finish it and make sure all is ready for Sunday’s carol service.