Another long gap, which might seem to reflect how busy I am or, possibly, how little is happening in my life. Reader, it is the former.
Dot returned safely from a successful philosophy session in Middlesbrough, and is now in Hethersett, sorting and packing on her aunt’s behalf with Angela, because the bungalow has to be vacated very soon. She will probably be there all day, as she was last Wednesday. It’s amazing how long it takes to empty a house, even a small one.
Over the past week I have successfully navigated a DCC meeting; transporting Phil and Joy to the doctor’s; an uplifting visit to the dentist (no pain, nothing wrong); and (yesterday) a meeting at the Norfolk Record Office about the Paston exhibition, which starts next month. The latter was followed swiftly by a gathering of Chronicle at our house, accompanied by a lunch lovingly prepared by Dot. We made plans for the CD, for a performance at the NRO and Cromer, and for more writing, with Oxnead as a focus.
In the evening I played what will probably be my last chess game for some time, losing to Martin Woolnough in the club knockout tournament, which I have got knocked out of on an annual basis for many years. Not a bad game, but for some reason a bit of a relief. Don’t know why, because I love the game, and I have friends at the club.
I have been feeling a bit down for the last few days – at times extremely down, which is unusual for me. It followed a visit to the bank (Santander) by Dot and myself to try to sort out our accounts following the bank’s decision to reorganise their system. I got so angry by all the complications, tie-ins, requirements and so on that I left without doing anything and told the guy what he was saying was rubbish and very annoying. He didn’t seem to agree.
I think I got depressed because this came on top of a number of other things that I haven’t been able to sort out – seats for the flights to Florida and Andrew’s money being prominent among them. I can actually feel my blood pressure rising.
The car’s air-conditioning is another thing. I took it in for diagnosis on Thursday, and the mechanic, who was very helpful and taught me a lot about air-conditioning by actual demonstration, decided that it needed a new compressor and some replacement seals. These are on order, which means the air-conditioning will have cost me over £1000 by the time it’s done, and there’s not even a guarantee that it will work properly when it’s finished. Meanwhile, Dot’s car is making alarming noises.
On the bright side, we had a very pleasant evening on Thursday with the Eagles and Bob and Felix from next door (Mary was meant to come, but she was ill). And on Saturday the Higbees came round for a lovely lunch, which stretched into late afternoon. It’s nice to have friends.
The weather is looking extremely autumnal, with plenty of rain today. The gorillas have gone, but not before I completed the trail on Saturday morning, the last one being hidden in the Roman Catholic Cathedral. This narrowly failed to win the prize for hardest to find, however. That was in Jarrolds’ basement.
