How can it be a week since my last post? Probably something to do with the Royal Mail strike, which is on its last day, with more promised. Or maybe it’s because life is just so busy. One of the exciting events in the last seven days was Oliver’s “official” birthday party at Woodland Farm, attended by ten of his friends from school. The picture shows him surrounded by female admirers, a member of Woodland staff and parts of his Dad and grandfather (the other one).

Dot and I functioned as minders, but with Vicky’s organisation, nothing was going to go wrong – unlike another party at the same place, when two children had inadvertently been left in the Playbarn by the organising mum. As the place is so well organised, they were in no danger – in fact they didn’t know anything was amiss. Ho, hum.

This happened on Sunday. On the Saturday, after England has amazingly managed to beat Australia at rugby (almost as amazing as France beating New Zealand the same evening), Oliver got so enthusiastic about the game that we had to go outside and play it. I managed to trip over Amy’s trampoline while going for a high ball and fell heavily on to it, doing myself some damage in the ribs area. Very painful, and it was hard to move round that evening, but I was walking OK by the party – to my surprise. It’s still unpleasant if I get into the wrong position, and turning over in bed is tricky, but on the whole it seems to be healing all right. I may be out of the World Cup Final, though.

Meanwhile, Norwich are in the relegation area after six straight losses and no goals. The manager is considering his position and doesn’t seem to have the energy or enthusiasm required to lift the team.

We are also in the midst of a garage re-creation programme. Today Annette and Mike came to liberate the chesterfield (and stayed for lunch), and Dot and I took books to the charity shop and rubbish to the tip. Needless to say, we chose the wettest day for weeks to do all this. Colin W came on Friday to look the place over and make some suggestions: he will be starting next week by removing whatever’s left in there and then making good the walls, painting everything in sight – including the floor – and erecting shelving. We’re going to put a few things on Freecycle. I have piles of things to plough through in the way of old newspapers, other papers, books etc. We’ve spent about £50 on plastic boxes.

Last night I lost another chess game to someone graded well below me. I had the advantage quite a lot of the time, but he refused to make a significant mistake, and eventually I was reduced to winning a piece, for which he got a lot of play, and I didn’t have enough time to deal with his threats.

Also yesterday we visited North Walsham to sort out Mum and Dad’s grave refurbishment. Stonemason was an extremely nice bloke who admired the picture of my great-great-grandparents’ headstone in Harlestone, Northamptonshire. Very helpful about what we want done. Followed this by dropping off Paston Letters book at Millfield School for Lucy, then visited J&F and the cemetery.

On Sunday we’d come back early from Caddington to front the Ambient Wonder “Magic of Words” preparation session. Plenty of ideas from the small throng assembled, but I’m not looking forward to organising it all. However, the vicar rang today to say my work on the Developing Consciousness book might not be wasted – he now sees it as part of a DC pack, which is promising. He’s managed to get the Bishop very interested in the whole thing, and is trying to spread it to America. No, I’m not kidding. He’s a vicar with global ideas. He also wants me to get involved with developing the Meditation Centre website, which might be interesting.