Another weekend, another storm. This time it was Storm Dennis, and it nearly aborted Kristine’s visit to Norwich, but she bravely went ahead with it, and the storm turned out to be survivable. She came via Cambridge and went back via the fabled Ingatestone bus, which took her to the Central Line at Newbury Park. Fortunately Leyton is on the Central Line…

We had a good time with her. She arrived at 11.43, and we had a coffee before going to Gem for lunch, which she insisted on paying for. Afterwards we showed her a bit of Outnumbered (it had come up in the conversation), and she loved it – never having seen it before. Obviously everyone should see Outnumbered. Time passed quickly, and it was a bit of a rush to give her cake and get her to the station for the 17.04 . I bade her farewell while Dot rushed off to Carrow Road for the home match against Liverpool. Norwich played really well and lost 1-0. So no change there.

The rest of the weekend was equally momentous. I led the service yesterday, and in the afternoon we braved the threat of rain to walk to the Cathedral for the installation of Carrie as a Lay Canon, or Big Gun, as I prefer to see it. Most of St Augustine’s went, and after undergoing the chill of the Cathedral and the rather tedious pseudo-legal proceedings and processings we had coffee at the west end, where we joined by Karen and Phil, Jo from South Africa, Kim and her daughter and a number of Carrie’s relatives.

Later in the day we heard that Sharon from church had had emergency open heart surgery at Addenbrooke’s to get rid of a blockage in her heart. She seems to be recovering ok. Bit of a shock for her, though she had been feeling ill. Also a shock for us and for her partner Steve, whose mother’s funeral we went to not long ago.

In further illness news, Bridget seems to be having serious problems following the death of her mother, and her husband David is not too well either. She is on medication and is being seen daily by a crisis team. Dot has been to see her, as have many others.

Bridget didn’t make it to Cake and Compline last Tuesday, but David came and didn’t look well. A lot of prayer both then and since has been going upwards – or in all directions, actually. Immersive.

On Wednesday Dot and I took the opportunity to squeeze in Little Women, which was very good in many ways. Later I spent some time with Neville in the pub while the orchestra rehearsed. He seems pretty well now.

The next day I drove out to North Walsham in the rain to take the Mautby and Mannington leaflets to Rob, as well as the Paston magazine. Had a cup of tea there. Also dropped off some NCFC tickets we had accumulated at Jonathan’s workplace.

On Valentine’s Day Dot and I had a romantic lunch at Jarrold’s The Exchange restaurant, following which we walked up to M&S and got mixed up in a Climate Change march – at least I think that’s what it was. Some people were taking pictures; so there’s a risk of wrong conclusions being drawn. We just happened to be going in the same direction, to pick up shekels and dollars for our Israel trip. After that we walked up to the Barclays at Whitefriars, where Dot was meeting Anna to go through some documents about Phyllis – something to do with a power of attorney, I think.

I walked home on my own and was exhausted. Dot arrived about 40 minutes later, noticeably less exhausted. There you go. The old order changes, giving place to the new.