And so it goes on. The ear syringe turned out to be inconclusive, and I have another appointment in two weeks’ time. Meanwhile, my hearing is not as good as it was before. Something going on in there, obviously. And the weather is pretty up and down too. We put the heating on because we were cold, and the system took revenge by getting hotter and hotter and ignoring all my efforts to turn it off. In the end I turned it completely off at the power switch in the garage, expecting to have to call British Gas on Saturday morning. But no, when I turned it on again, it behaved perfectly normally. And when I went out for a walk the weather was quite warm too. Some rain, admittedly, but I avoided it.

We were lucky, too, with our visit to West Runton on Thursday to see Fred (my best man) and Sue at their caravan. Quite a pleasant afternoon: we had a surprisingly good lunch at Wiveton Fruit Fram followed by tea and scones at the Blakeney Hotel before walking to Morston. From there we caught the Coasthopper bus. Dot and Sue stayed on it right back to West Runton, while Fred and I alighted at Blakeney to pick up the car, cheekily parked at the Manor Hotel, our regular reunion venue. New steps down the cliff at WR, so we popped down to look in the rock pools, revealed by a very low tide.

Friday saw more travelling, this time to Beccles for an evening private view of prints, mainly by Annette and her students. Annette’s mother and sister were there, but we just missed Lucy. Very odd weather. It was cool before we left, so we put on some autumnal clothes. But the gallery was warm verging on very warm, so by the time we left we were boiling. And when we reached Norwich it was pouring with rain, so we were cold, warm, hot and wet in the space of two or three hours. Then very hot when the heating refused to turn itself off…

Saturday was again mixed, but I managed to get out for a three-mile walk in the afternoon. Then out of the blue we went to Godfreys and bought two sorts of hedge cutters and a saw – and not only that but actually cut a few branches off our overgrown hedge. And more today! However, today’s surprise purchase was a windbreak, which we bought at Waxham after seeing what it was like on the beach. This was a joint day out for the two churches or, as it turned out, a very few people from the two churches. It wasn’t cold, but you had to get out of the wind, which was blowing sand everywhere, specifically into the picnic. Dot and I took both our cars so we could give lifts to Phyllis, Elvira, Pepukai, Richard and Allanah, which is a good cross-section not only in age but also culturally, taking in Africa and South America. Quite a good time, but no-one stayed very long after lunch.

I’m getting through Avilion, which is both excellent and mysterious, as Robert Holdstock always is. And we have at last started watching Series 2 of Battlestar Galactica, which is brilliant. Eight episodes down.