Al was woken by a phone call from the delivery driver, who had arrived at the shop to find that the flat above the gents’ hairdresser opposite was on fire and the road was full of fire engines.  Of course, he couldn’t get to the shop to make his delivery and Al, realising that he wouldn’t be able to open up this morning, asked him to take everything back to Norwich.  He got on his bike and went in to find out what was going on.

Here’s a photo I took from the church tower a few years ago – it’s the right hand side of the white building in the foreground.  The flat is badly damaged – it’s the one next to where Badgerdaddy used to live, and the roof of that one is damaged too.  The hairdresser is badly damaged by water, but it seems that the butcher’s shop next door is all right.  He couldn’t open up either today, of course.  There’s speculation about how it might have started – it’s untenanted and empty at present – but I daresay the truth will emerge.  Fortunately, it rained heavily in the night (I was woken several times by the noise) which probably helped to stop it spreading along the row.  I’m so sorry for Suzanne the hairdresser, but apparently she has already found somewhere to move to temporarily.  It was only a couple of years ago that the landlord had the buildings renovated – the same chap who did Al’s renovations last year, he’s really good and understands old buildings.

Al enjoyed his day off.  We went and had lunch at the café at the garden centre.  The woman who runs it already had an established catering company and the food is jolly good.  Al and Dilly wanted to go to the cinema this evening, so I offered to give the children their tea.  Weeza and family were coming over, but ended up arriving quite late so I suggested we all ate at about 6 o’clock – fortunately, I’d bought a couple of pounds of sausages and some bacon, and I added carrots, chips, tomatoes and macaroni cheese to the menu. The children were all really good and ate lots.  Now that Pugsley has stopped being difficult about food, he’s much happier and so are mealtimes generally.  They are also extremely good about going to bed, and each chose a book for me to read, I chose a third and then gave them ten minutes to read to themselves before switching the light off.