We got a real blast of Storm Ciara yesterday, with very high winds and some heavy rain, but fortunately it didn’t get really bad till we were home from church. So we got a good 17-18 people for the service. Sarah was ill with vertigo again; so the Communion service was taken by Liz. All went very well.

It’s still extremely windy, and we had an impressive shower of hail about an hour ago. In the west of the county it’s snowing, as it is over much the country. As so often (though not always) we get away with it a bit in East Anglia. Some quite bad floods in Yorkshire. Still a possibility of more bad weather overnight.

So we haven’t been out today. I’ve been at the computer a fair bit, but I’ve also helped Dot re-organise my study, other wise known as Oliver’s room. It is now bedless, until we get a sofa bed, and has Mum’s gate-leg table in it. My favourite table – goes right back to Brian Avenue. Another plus is that the radiator is now freed to give me a bit of hot air – as if I needed it.

We had a busy day last Wednesday, which was a bight and calm day. First, I got some Paston leaflets from Nick Stone’s office on Castle Meadow, with the help of Dot parking in a loading bay in Opie Street (I’d got a Blofield display board on foot the day before). Then we filled the car up with petrol and had some lunch. Then I went off on my own to the cleaners and then to visit my cousin Barbara, who now lives at Cromer, separated from her husband.

She seemed delighted to see me, and we had a good talk for about 90 minutes, talking about our mutual relatives. She seemed to be doing well. In the evening Dot and I went to the book club, with only Judy, Carrie and Kim for company, plus a newcomer – a black woman called Roslyn (I think) – who supported some of our more radical views. So that was nice.

The next day we went to see The Personal History of David Copperfield at the cinema – an excellent, very witty and inventive film with the brilliant idea of using black and white actors irrespective of whether they were related or not (eg A posh white lad had an even posher black mother). That’s what I call diversity.

On Saturday I picked up my pills from the chemist, then walked out to St James Hill from the newly empty car park on Britannia Road (following the closure of the cafe). Again a beautiful day, and Dot spent quite a lot of time in the garden, transforming the patio.