Saturday – Warm. phone call from my cousin Barbara woke us at 7.15am: apparently she had had a call from me the previous day, but I have no record of it. Went to sleep again: Roger and Barbara arrived to do gardening at 10am, just as we got up. Watched Spurs draw 2-2 with Brighton while Norwich were losing 3-2 to Wrexham. Meanwhile, bricks were being moved, weeds extracted and soil fetched, but not by me. I may have moved a brick or two. Wasn’t feeling so good; so I went downstairs for half an hour. All had bread made by Chrissy. Really nice. Chrissy, David, Barbara and Roger worked hard on putting hostas in. Later we went out for a walk. Dot, David and I lagged somewhat behind the other three. Eventually had nice supper – chicken and cauliflower etc. I was careful not to have too much. Vigorous conversation about books, then Trump, led by David and Barbara. Roger and Barbara then went home and we watched Only Murders, followed by another loss by the Blue Jays. 

Sunday – Warm. Took another trip to St Jacobs, again meeting David there after one of his cycle rides. Had a snack (scone for me) at the Eco Café, then Dot and I walked up to the Book Loft. Chrissy took the car. Dot bought a Joan Didion book, Play it as it Lays, which she has started reading. I am nearing the end of Rules of Civility on Kindle. Chrissy then drove us home while David cycled. Dot went with Chrissy to view a house down the road, which was nice but much smaller than 515. Cost over a million, though. We went for a walk later: humidity was high, and I had no energy, though I managed over 5000 for day. Had a sleep and for some reason felt good afterwards. Was able to eat more or less normal meal – excellent lasagne, Caesar salad and garlic bread. Quite fierce thunderstorm in early evening. Blue Jays won again, and we saw the last three episodes of Series 2 of Only Murders in the Building. Bed quite early. 

Monday – Overcast but not cold. Intermittent light rain. Had very mild headache most of day, for some reason. After breakfast we drove to uptown Waterloo and had a walk round, taking in Words Worth Books and the town centre landmarks, such as galleries and library. Bought book for Chrissy. Chrissy took us on slightly longer walk while David fetched car and picked us up. Supposed to meet Barbara and Roger at Rumbletum Café, but when B and R got there they found it was closed; so changed meeting point to Eco-Café at St Jacobs. After lunch we all drove back to Anndale Court and spent a lot of time talking. I had a longish talk with David on politics and Christianity, agreeing on essential points. Many subjects discussed in more general chat. Then had fish burgers, and Roger and Barbara departed before we watched Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which was very funny. In bed just after 10pm, after Dot and I had done some steps downstairs and I had miraculously reached 4000. 

Tuesday – Last day. Warm and dry until it wasn’t. Packed first thing. David drove us to the Rumbletum Café, which turned out to be closed, which Roger and Barbara should have noticed, but didn’t. So instead we drove to a place in uptown Waterloo, where we had brunch. Nice blackberry muffins in my case, but the others had more elaborate items, which in Dot’s case attracted wasps; so she and Chrissy fled indoors. David and I stayed out, because there were no tables for four outside. Nice place, though. Drove back home, and left for the airport about 2.15pm, which turned out to be roughly ten hours too early. But we didn’t know that then.

Clear run to the airport, and David and Chrissy helpfully guided us through obtaining a boarding pass and checking in luggage. We then said good-bye and went through security surprisingly easily. Lots of walking brought us to the vicinity of our gate – an area where there were cafés and shops. Got ourselves some food, and a very nice woman saved my life by noticing that my passport had slipped out of my pocket and was on the floor beside my chair. Not only that, she told me. I offered her money, but she declined. Still plenty of time to go; so Dot bought me a large glass of wine by mistake. I think it made all the difference. We were about to enter a nightmare. 

Wednesday (but still Tuesday in Canada) – Boarding the plane took far too long as usual, but we eventually got on. It was about 20 minutes behind schedule, which was just enough to screw everything up. By the time we had crawled out to the runway, and had waited for everyone who had got in front of us, we were in the middle of a thunderstorm. We hung around for quite a while; then we were diverted to a different runway, which was on the other side of the airport. Took us ages to get there; then the storm was still too bad, and the pilots discovered we were too low on fuel. So we had to go back to the main buildings to refuel – except that the weather was too bad to do that. Eventually they decided we all had to get off the plane, because we’d been on too long. My heart sank.

So we got off the plane and were given 15 dollars each to get something to eat – available by using our boarding pass. It took us some time to find someone who (a) did not have a long queue (b) accepted the system and (c) was open, but eventually we managed to. Flight time was put back three times, and reboarding took ridiculously long, considering that we all had boarded once already. One Sikh guy held up our queue by having a long discussion with the boarding clerk – goodness knows why. Eventually we got on – it was the same plane – and we managed to take off. It was just after 2.30am Canada time (7.30am UK time).

I declined the meal, but ate Dot’s roll, and had another white wine. Surprisingly, I slept about three hours and watched most of Dune 2. I think. Dot said she watched three films and slept. I was sitting beside two Indian ladies who were strangely calm – in fact neither of them ever used the toilet. At “breakfast” there was no tea or coffee because the seatbelt signs were on for bumpy conditions, which were so slight I barely noticed. Methinks they couldn’t be bothered to heat the water.

Anyway, we landed about 2.30pm UK time, and all went very smoothly except that we had to wait ages for our luggage, which seemed to be almost the last off the plane. We then made for the Queen Elizabeth line, which was a considerable hike, involving lifts, and not clearly signed. We got there as a train was about to leave. We boarded it and, reader, it was going to Liverpool Street. It was also very crowded, mainly with Asians, but we go there and disembarked. Our cases were feeling very heavy and there was still a long way to go.

Dot’s case got a lift up some steps from a kind commuter or angel who I didn’t even see, and we reached Platform 9, where a Norwich-bound train – the 4.30pm – was waiting. It was 4.23pm. We got on it – to discover it was the last off-peak train before rush-hour. Our tickets were off-peak. It was a lovely train, the weather was warmish and dry, and we got tea and coffee from a trolley, because there was no turbulence. We also got a croissant (Dot) and chocolate thingy(me). It was a beautiful journey. We switched to a better seat twice as commuters departed. Got to Norwich totally exhausted and managed to drag ourselves up the hill. Then, almost immediately, drove to Morrisons to get essentials. My memory of all this is a bit blurred, but eventually – quite soon – we went to bed. I got up in the night to eat a peach. Dot slept through till about 9am. I started wandering about the folk on the flight who had been really messed up – those with flight connections, for instance. It could certainly have been worse.