No obvious side-effects from our vaccinations last Friday, other than mildly sore arms. I have had the odd headache, but then I sometimes do. Also very mild. In the evening Des brought Dot some fish and chips, which she ate while I looked on enviously and consumed some much less fatty kipper fillets that I’d cooked in the oven. We watched The Never-ending Story, which was quite clever but could have been better: it sort of petered out.
On Saturday Dot got a record 15/20 in the Telegraph quiz and then had a long chat with Anne on the phone. Her daughter Charlotte, who is a nurse, had a vaccination and then discovered she already had covid and was feeling pretty ill. Her husband also has it. David FaceTimed us after beating me at chess. Norwich lost 1-0 to Barnsley in the Cup – Dot listened on radio. I have been doing some more Paston stuff. In the evening we watched Gladiator, which was much better than I thought it would be. Very good, in fact.
On Sunday we listened to Ms Rolf in bed. Norfolk was almost unique in not having snow, but happily for Amy, Aylesbury did. Weather was pretty appalling, but I managed to do 4000 steps indoors! Had a Zoom church service at 6pm, and I preached on the wedding at Cana. Quite a good attendance. Watched quite a lot of TV – an old episode of Endeavour, plus Spiral and The Serpent, not to mention Match of the Day.
Monday was sunny but still with a bit of quite cold wind. Nevertheless, we did quite a long post-prandial walk along the river and round the back of Carrow Road and the little houses by the railway line. Heard from David that Oliver didn’t get into Cambridge, which I found amazing. He seems to be taking it very well, and is deciding between Bath and Warwick, both of whom have offered him places. I had long chats with Ray and Chris and then Lily on the phone (she is feeling a bit down), and in the evening we Zoomed in on a brilliant science and faith meeting, where Denis Alexander of the Faraday Institute spoke about Evolution and the Love of God. He was brilliant and made me rethink my views. It all makes sense now, but in a different way. Interestingly his ideas coincided in one way with Iain M Banks’ suggestion in one of his SF books that physical existence is impossible without suffering. Banks, of course, was an atheist: he was telling a story, not making a theological point. Meanwhile Spurs beat Wycombe 4-1 in the Cup, scoring three of their goals in the last five minutes.
Dot has been interacting with her schools again, and this morning is in a Zoom DSSO meeting. Yesterday we had text exchanges with Oliver, who says he is now excited about the other possibilities that are open to him. Any university would be fortunate to have him. The weather was again poor: it rained most of the day and was very cold. So of course we walked up and down indoors, keeping up our steps. We watched an excellent film called An Education, then had our Zoom Compline with all the usual suspects including Kim, who has just joined us.
The Hello Fresh man has just delivered. I have been reading more, but have made the mistake of building up an intimidating pile of books. They are: The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel, which is borrowed and very, very long – I haven’t started it; Antlers of Water, which David gave me for Christmas, which is writings about Scotland, some of them quite memorable – about halfway through; The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman, which I gave Dot for Christmas – unstarted; Born Bad by James Joyce, a friend living in New Zealand – read a few chapters; The Hidden Gospel by Neil Douglas-Klotz, which is about the Aramaic Jesus – about halfway through; Cultural Sexism, by our friend Heather Savigny – a few chapters; Poetry Notebook by Clive James – a gift from my brother and sister-in-law for Christmas; and somewhat surprisingly The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, which I picked up in the loo. This does not include the ones I dip into occasionally.