Last week, when Zerlina was six weeks old, we took her photo against a photograph of her mother and me, when El herself was six weeks old.

I remember the day particularly; I had an appointment at the doctor for my six-week check-up and El had to be fed and changed first, but then the photographer arrived. He was a friend of my parents and had known my father since childhood, and their parents were friends too. Now, his son and wife are good friends of ours and their children went to school with El and Al and are still friends in their turn – in fact, Susie has already visited El and little z.

His name (the photographer’s), rather splendidly, was Wallingford; known as Ford, and his studio was just on the North side of the bridge in the centre of Lowestoft, if any of you ever visited the town in the past. One of his sisters was called Waveney, after the river.

Anyway, El was a bit fractious because she was hungry, but she stayed cheerful for long enough for the photos to be taken.

This is a week ago, BTW, little z is 7 weeks old now.

It’s been a funny sort of day. I went to bed early because I was really tired, and the first time I woke up in the night (I wake up during the course of most hours of the night at the moment, which is probably the reason I’m tired) it dawned on me that, as it has been so cold this week, I probably should have turned on the church heating for this morning. I decided to go in at 8 o’clock so that at least the radiators would be hot and people would think it was warm in there.

In the event, it was a mild day but extremely wet. I actually drove the 200 yards to church. Yes, I know. But it was absolutely tipping down and, even with an umbrella, my trousers would have been soaked. I’d had to change once this morning, and that was just going from the car to the newspaper shop.

There were only 8 of us in church, including 2 ministers, the organist, the organist’s wife, the sidesman, the churchwarden and the person reading the lesson (the churchwarden read the second); so that left one person there because she chose to be. Afterwards, I went home and made brownies.

There was to be an ordination in one of the churches this afternoon; that is, Reg was to become a fully fledged Ordained Local Minister (that’s a real priest, only unpaid and licenced to work in the benefice he lives in) and so the Bishop was visiting again. Afterwards, there would be tea. My contribution to the feast was to be the brownies.

I decided to make two batches, so that the Sage and Ro would know I cared. I had just enough chocolate and butter and dark brown sugar, but not enough self raising flour. Plenty of plain, so I could add baking powder. It was only after I took them out of the oven and thought they didn’t look right that I realised I’d forgotten the baking powder. I tasted a bit. It seemed fine. Pfft. I’d take them anyway. While I was in the drawing room reading the papers, Ro came in. “What’s with the brownies?” he asked. I said I’d made an extra batch and explained the mishap – “They’re fine” he said. “You took one?” “I could tell they weren’t counted.” “16 in each batch. You took one from the round dish?” “Yes” “That’s all right then – mind you, I’d just have given blame where it was due.”

The service was fine – lovely, actually, but I was shocked, when talking to a friend I hadn’t seen for a few years, to piece together bits of a family tragedy that she evidently thought I knew about. Afterwards, I asked someone else, and it transpired that about 3 years ago, their eldest grandson killed himself at the age of 17. I only saw that boy once, when he was a cheerful platinum-haired toddler and you can well imagine how I feel for him and his family, and I didn’t know so never said anything to them and now I can only do so if I write and maybe bring it up afresh.

Afterwards, the tea went fine, and all my brownies were eaten. Towards the end, I was talking to another churchwarden, who I had noticed earlier looked pale and drawn. I asked how she was, and (it was a day when people assumed I knew what they were talking about) she said that she still felt pretty rough and she was glad that at least the funeral wouldn’t be at her church, and kept talking in that vein. Again, it seemed better to make the right noises and not actually ask – it turned out that her ex-husband had been found dead at his home, having died in his bathroom no-one quite knew how many days before. They had been married for 33 years and divorced for 5 – I rather gathered that she had finally left him because his behaviour had become impossible to live with, and since then his drinking had only got worse and worse. I said that, after such a long marriage, she would still be his widow and grieve for him, but that she would not get the sympathy and support due to a widow – she said that this was how she felt, but I wondered if I’d been too outspoken?

Afterwards, I congratulated Reg. I am so glad for him. His wife was desperately ill in the first year of his training and he had to extend it while he looked after her, but she has made a good recovery and now looks healthy and happy and very proud. I kissed him and told him we were proud of him, and he looked pleased and kissed me.

Oh, and this morning, with only 5 in the congregation, I felt obliged to sing hymns loudly. I usually spare people the sound of my voice, but I know how disconcerting it is for the organist to not be able to hear anyone, and if someone sings it encourages other people, so I sang my little heart out. Actually, all that breathing out made me feel a bit faint, so I had to take my coat off and get too chilly to faint. I could feel the heat of the radiator, but not quite enough to go without a coat.

I looked after the children all morning, as Dilly was helping with a charity stall under the Buttercross and Al was, as always on a Saturday (unless I take over) at work. Little angels, they were. They were still having breakfast when I went through, then Squiffany dressed herself and I helped Pugsley, then we came home and they bounced on my bed while I worked around them to change the sheets and tidy the bedroom. Then I told them I’d bought them some new paints, so they painted at the kitchen table while I cleaned up around them. Squiffany is very into rainbows at present, and wanted to know the order of the colours, which she painted carefully and accurately. She wrote her name on the page – she can write all the letters but does not yet know that the order matters. After that, they ate cheese straws and jam rings and I squeezed orange juice for them, and we came and played Lotto. I needed to wash the kitchen floor, which I’d left until after the painting was done, so they watched television and played alone for a bit, and then we went out into the garden. It was windy. After that, they had lunch and then their mother came home.

Squiffany was going to a party in the afternoon, so Pugsley came to me again. He did some more drawing – we both drew a tiger and an elephant. He was so impressed by my stripes that he overlooked the fact that I’m not sure what a tiger’s ears look like. We read a book three times. I wanted to read a different book, but no. For tea, I cooked him fish fingers, chips and peas. I would like to think that this does not make me a Bad Granny. In fact, he fed me most of the chips, grinning mightily, ate the fish fingers – three of them – and left the peas. I looked at him and thought how like his father, at the same age, he looks.

In between times, I cooked carbonnade of beef for dinner. It is apparent that the weather has changed. I want to be in the warm kitchen, cooking. It’s very windy tonight. We ate it with sprouting broccoli, mashed potatoes, courgettes and carrots. I ate my share of carrots raw, while I was peeling potatoes.

The Bishop is coming again tomorrow – I know, darlings, you wait all year and then all your bishopings come together. The service is at a different church and the organ, and organising, have nothing to do with me. I will make chocolate brownies as my contribution to the tea.

I went into the kitchen this evening to make some coffee, and the Sage was in the study next door on the phone, and I realised that his rich and dirty chuckle is just like mine. So what I’m wondering is, has he taken on my laugh over the years or have I taken on his?

I went into a music lesson today. It was good. The teacher wants Year 9 to have a go at some music composition, but most of them wouldn’t have the confidence or knowledge to do that now, so this term she gets them to arrange a piece of music of her choice, next term one of their own choice, and in the summer she will have them, in groups, writing their own. The piece she has chosen for this term is Word Up, by Cameo

I can’t play the drums or the guitar, but I can teach enough to get by. It’s good and I enjoy it.

Afterwards, I spent the afternoon with Weeza and Zerlina. z slept on me for quite some time, enabling her mother to clean the house – Phil’s family is visiting this weekend. She had to wake z to have a feed at 6 o’clock and z fell asleep again afterwards. Weeza says she is always very relaxed after I have visited. I explain that I bore her to sleep and that it should last all evening…

Yes indeed, as Dave has already observantly observed, the Sage is in the paper today. If you see the EDP, it’s on page 22 and if not try here.
He’s also got a half page spread in the local paper and a piece in the Lowestoft local paper, both page 2.

If you’d like to see the whole catalogue, this is our website.

Last night, I went to bed and set the alarm for 6 am, because I had to leave early for another trip to London. Last time I looked at the clock before going to sleep, it was just before 12.45. At 1.17, the Sage and I were woken by the sound of the burglar alarm. The Sage sighed and started to climb out of bed. “Thass not th’alarm, issit?” I mumbled dozily. He said it was, and went off downstairs to shoo the spider off the beam and reset the alarm. That it might be a burglar seemed highly unlikely, as Tilly takes her duties as guard dog with a completely professional attitude.

A few minutes later, the Sage reappeared. “It’s a bat” he announced. “In the dining room”. “What? Oh bugger. It’ll be a devil to catch, they always know where you are,” I said, rather wider awake by then. I got up and shambled downstairs in my dressing gown. In the dining room, nothing stirred for a few moments and then the bad swooped past, too quickly for me to follow it with my eyes. It did it again. Then nothing. I went to open the shutters, then the window and then started to peer all around the room. We couldn’t find the bat, which was hiding. The Sage wound up his torch, turned off the light and shone the torch into various potential batcaves.

After several minutes, we gave up, shut the window and went back to bed. Today, the window has been left open and we hope it went out again at dusk – the alarm is set in that room so that if it’s still there we should find out about it before bedtime.

But it’s a bit bemusing. We didn’t use the dining room yesterday and the doors weren’t opened. There is an opening between the hall and the dining room, but the hall is divided into two with a door between and the door is only opened when we go upstairs and then shut again. The front door had not been opened and nor had any upstairs windows. I did leave the hall door open for about five minutes, but the door to the porch was not open at the time and it was mid-afternoon, before bats were about. There is a chimney, but it’s lined and the flue goes to the woodburning stove, which is shut.

So, how on earth did a bat get into the dining room?

My new tenant phoned today. He’s been trying to get a phone line and internet connection set up as soon as possible. You’d think it would be quick and easy, but it can be extraordinarily time consuming. He’s working abroad this week, so he hasn’t actually moved in yet. He rang as I was rather his last resort. He was told that he’d have to pay a £50 deposit, which he accepted – but his credit card wasn’t, because it isn’t a British one. He’s European, from a country in the EU, and has just come to live here, as a posting from an international firm he’s worked for for several years. He was told he could send a postal order (when was the last time you used a postal order?) but that would take 11 working days to process and only then could he be given a date for the line to be set up. This is a line that has only been closed for a couple of months – though mind you, Weeza and Phil had to go through the whole malarkey for a line that had been closed for one day, and were unable to keep the same phone number.

So he rang me to ask if I’d pay the £50 and he pay me back. I agreed – poor bloke, what’s a person to do? He said he’d phone BT again and ring me straight back with a direct line to make the payment. He was not, obviously, wanting my card details himself.

Several hours went past. Eventually, he rang again. He said that he’d finally got everything done, the sales person at the end of the phone filled in all his details – and then her internet connection went down and it was all lost. He had to wait for a bit and ring again. This time, it went smoothly and at the end he mentioned the deposit. “Oh no, no deposit’s necessary” he was told. He’s been given a date of 10th October, and has been assured that both phone and internet will be set up on the same day.

Apart from the hours it has taken him – almost a whole day – it’s all an extraordinarily unwieldy procedure. I don’t understand it at all. Back in the day, there was a shortage of phone lines. Do you remember party lines? Two households had to share a line; they had different numbers but if one person was using the phone no one in the other house was able to. That was all my sister was able to get at one point. But now it isn’t a shortage of lines and there is no setting up to do, as the line is already wired in. So what takes the time?