Things are changing in small ways, though the Government and its graph-ridden scientific advisers don’t seem to have noticed. They are apparently determined to introduce new measures in the coming months, even though they say they’d rather not. Freedom, anyone? Apparently not.
This was probably why everyone was so ecstatic about the amazing and uplifting achievement of tennis star Emma Radicanu, who is British, even though she was born in Toronto and has an Eastern European father and a Chinese mother. I’m not being cynical: I’m all for the rights of adopted children, and Emma is clearly British deep down. Rarely is so much attractiveness and talent combined.
It came at good time, because last Saturday evening I was feeling quite groggy after supper and had a lie down on bed. But I got up and watched Emma win the US Grand Slam final 6-4 6-3 in New York against a Canadian who also seems to have star quality, although she’s definitely grumpier. Emma is younger than Oliver, and she did it on his 19th birthday. We had a nice message from him.
Sunday was warm again, and I felt better. Had a bath and went to church. Howard, being Howard, preached from the Apocrypha – anticipations of Jesus. Before that there was a long discussion on the development of Anglia Square. This has been going on so long I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned in the Apocrypha. Anna had coughing similar to Dot. Dot is not so bad – she walked over to Boots in the afternoon after we’d watched a rather dull Match of the Day. David FaceTimed – he seemed well. We watched the Grand Prix – Hamilton and Verstappen thoughtfully collided, so that McLaren could get a 1-2. Then a new series of Endeavour, which was good. Went to bed early.
Monday was warm again, with occasional cloud. Busy day. We drove to North Walsham in the morning – visited an exhibition in the church, but it turned out to be mainly Paston stuff we’d seen before. But we were able to congratulate Rob on its birthday. He was on counting duty. Dot asked him about Doreen’s cross. To Sainsbury’s for food and flowers, then to cemetery. “Assisted” by a lady who had five graves to look after. Drove home; after lunch drove up to John Lewis to pick up vacuum cleaner – £149, AEG – a very quick transaction. While Dot was opening it and charging it I ordered Full Fibre broadband and then some Naked Wine. Walked up to the Rosary with Dot and put flowers on parents’ and grandparents’ graves. After supper we watched Vigil, a new thriller called The North Water, which I’m not sure about, and another episode of The Chosen. Stunning.
Yesterday I took Dot up to the hospital for a chest x-ray and called in at Earlham cemetery to look for my grandparents’ grave – unsuccessfully, but I got in well over 3000 steps before the rain started. After that it rained nearly all day. Dot came home on the (very slow) bus. I did rota and discovered that Anna now had a bad respiratory tract infection, but on the plus side was getting her eye operation next Wednesday.
One of Dot’s orchestra colleagues came round with music for her and revealed that her autistic grandson was in a bad way and had been excluded from school. Linda arrived early to cut our hair; so we had a late lunch, and I had a reading bath. Oliver FaceTimed in the evening and seemed in quite good spirits: he and Amy will come on Friday evening, all being well. We watched two episodes of Silent Witness – almost too clever, but it worked – and a film, Out of Sight, starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, which was very good indeed, almost Fargo-like in places.
This morning it’s cooler, but dry. We received our BT parcel of goodies and endless e-mails and messages about what was going to happen. Dot’s coffee also arrived; so a good morning for parcels. We have Des’s courtesy car in our drive – a gigantic SUV which he doesn’t think his wife can get into their drive and anyway fills it up. It will have to go by Friday evening!