Everything went well, which is absolutely worthy of note. Trains on time, nice ticket collector, we dodged the forecast rain. We met a very nice couple before lunch – she’s a published poet (not even self-published) and then another woman joined us and it turned out they had a shared knowledge and interest in genetics and cancer, which gave rise to another fascinating conversation. At lunch, I sat next to a man called Roy and we enjoyed chatting to each other.

With half an hour to return to the station, we didn’t quite make it to the next train (there in 28 minutes, which wasn’t good enough) but waited for the next one. We bagged seats at a table and were joined by one woman and then another, and that gave rise to another really interesting chat. W1 recognised W2 as a visitor to a hotel where she’d been assistant manager, and they started to talk. W1 had had a career swerve, about 8 years ago and is now a landscape gardener. She’s currently working on a rooftop project in London and showed us a lot of pictures and we talked about it all the way home – or to Ipswich anyway, which was where they got off.

Ecat hasn’t spoken to me yet. She’s friendly with Wink but gives me the cold shoulder. I’m allowed to feed her and let her out, but there’s no interaction.

I needed to contact a call centre, which I did on WhatsApp and had the most helpful and friendly person I could ever imagine. Her name is Nafisa and she is brilliant. She started to raise a complaint for me, but I said I wasn’t complaining, I just wanted help with the matter, so she sorted it out. She’s going to guide me through the next bit on Thursday evening, but all is well right now. Slightly odd that the direct debit I set up (without her, by this time) had no option but for a set amount, whereas I’d prefer it to be the actual amount of the bill, but I’ll deal with that in due course.

Carrying on with a busy week, I’m going to a lecture tomorrow about the Ravenna mosaics, which I have visited and they’re incredible, but I’ll be happy to see again, albeit on a screen. Then we’re taking Ro out for lunch.