Not as straightforward a week as I had expected it to be. I spent quite a lot of time on the Paston Database, but then found I had to do three articles for Parish Pump (on Jill Dando, Daniel Defoe and Manchester City FC) as well as update the Paston Blofield leaflet. Dot has had a cold/cough; so in spite of the generally very good weather we have been rather restricted in what we’ve done. We hadn’t seen Jessie this week until yesterday, when we decided to ignore Dot’s cough, which is intermittent, though sometimes impressive.

I also have a bit of a cough, but nothing like as bad as Dot’s. I am just hoping it doesn’t get worse, as we are heading for Buxton next weekend.

We did go for tea with Paul on Sunday afternoon. No-one has decided what will be best for Maryta, but happily Paul has taken my advice (and that of Pete Kelley) to resist functioning as her at-home carer, because I don’t think he would last long if he did. He has frequent chest problems and had just had extensive varicose vein surgery. Dot went to see her yesterday, and she was not as angry as expected, though she is aware that she is not being discharged any time soon. (I went for another walk in the cemetery.)

Dot didn’t go to Centering Prayer on Monday, for fear of breaking out coughing during the silence; so I gave a lift to the two women who come regularly by train. On Tuesday I went to the Jurnet’s poetry session and it turned out to be really good. I read two older poems – Italian Time and Playing with Fish – which seemed to go down quite well, and I spoke to a couple of young first-timers, one of whom did a very Christian poem in semi-rap style.

The last three days have been quite warm and sunny; on Thursday Dot and I decided to go to Cley. We walked to the hides and had a look at some birds, including a barn owl, which put in a guest appearance. Lots of stunning lapwings, and plenty of others. We then wandered back to the cafe but discovered that it shut at 3.30pm (it was then 3.34pm). This, though idiotic, turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because we drove into Cley, parked round the back on Fairfields and went to the cafe on the corner, where we had an excellent scone (me) and rocky road (Dot) before it too shut at 4pm. We also bought some fish cakes and mackerel from the Smokehouse and have already eaten them both.

Yesterday we had our hair cut and – after going to see Jessie, who was very, very weak (she thought she was dying the previous night) and having a chat with Roger – we drove to Happisburgh and walked along the cliff towards Cart Gap. Beautiful late afternoon, but a lot more of the cliff has fallen on to the beach. A pill box which used to be well into the ploughed field is now virtually on the edge. Back at home we watched a 2013 action film on TV called Olympus Has Fallen, which – while pretty unbelievable – was certainly entertaining.