Dot had a bad night on Monday, with much coughing, but she was determined to get to Morston Hall in the evening. Roger drove us so that I could have a drink or two, and the meal was as always excellent, exceeded in quality only by the service. Dot survived well enough, though her throat is very sensitive to vinegar at times like these, and she had one attack (and a much worse one earlier in the day). It is now Friday, and she is almost better. She is preparing a meal tonight for Roger and Barbara (who are in Essex again during the day) and Anne and Philip, who are joining us at 7pm.

We had another first-class meal yesterday, though I made a tactical error which made it rather less special for me. It was at the Ship Inn, Brancaster. I led with a “small” caesar salad and then went for fish and chips which, although very tasty, was far too big a portion, and I had to leave most of the chips and omit the sweet. The others made more judicious choices and raved about it. Once again, the service was first class, and there were vows to return.

Originally, this had been planned as a light lunch to precede a Walking event from Holkham – part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. But the weather was so atrocious, and both Dot (especially) and Roger so below par, that in combination with Barbara’s sensitivity to to any temperature below really hot, we were persuaded to abandon the idea. This turned out to be the right decision in so many ways. Exceptionally high winds and driving rain would have made the walking awful even if we had been fit, and it would have been a big rush to get there after the Ship. So that was all good, then – which reminds me, we have already got through both series of Twenty Twelve on DVD, much to the Murrays’ delight. Last night we started on Dollhouse.

The weather generally has been fickle. On Wednesday Roger, Barbara and I had a long walk in the morning while Dot rested, and we took in the Rosary, Lion Wood, part of Mousehold and a large proportion of the Riverside Walk, plus the Cathedral loos and St Andrew’s Hall. It amounted to over six miles. Dot was keen to go to Cromer in the afternoon, so after lunch we set out despite a bad forecast, and got to Cromer just as it started to rain. We bought some fruit and vegetables on the way to the pier, but by the time we reached the sea front the rain was coming down in a quite determined fashion. We had a brief shot at the museum, but in the end I went and got the car and picked them up from in front of the church (traffic through the town was as always awful), driving home through driving rain.

In other news, I have had a couple of e-mails from a Jennifer Lenton in Australia who asked me about my family history. As a result of information she supplied, I am now led to believe that my great-great-great grandfather was one Thomas Lenton, who died in 1806 while working at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire and who is related to the said Jennifer. His son William seems to be the one whose tombstone is in Folksworth churchyard. Some more research needed there, though once you get back to 1800, sources are few and far between.

Arrangements for rebuilding our living room are now sorted out: furniture removal Monday, asbestos removal Tuesday, rebuilding ceiling Wednesday; redecoration the following Monday. Sounds like a barrel of laughs.