Wednesday 28th October 2026

Alarm at 0730...Aki up to ready herself for Rowing Club. She brought me a mug of tea. I got up in anticipation of receiving the roofers, but Gary rang to say that Mark wasn't able to come in this morning, so he'd aim to turn up about lunchtime. I did a little work at the laptop trying to work out some routes for the Suffolk and Norfolk inspections for Hastoe. There's a lot of mileage! Will have to base myself in Bury St Edmunds for a night, and in Norwich for a night or two. Popped out to Waitrose to buy courgettes...came home and made courgette soup for lunch. Gary and Mark showed up at 1330. Supplied them with a bucket of water to mix cement...extensive brickwork repairs required to the parapets! Warmed up the chicken lasagne for dinner, with lots of vegetables. Noticed a sad post on FaceBook from Nicky Bolton stating that her husband, Howard, had passed away after battling a brain tumour...I alerted the GGMM community, and will look out for funerary details. Ventured into town...No.29 bus to Tottenham Court Road, and a short walk to the Brunei Gallery at SOAS for a concert of Bangladeshi music and spoken word, part of the Bloomsbury Festival, and centred around the publication of a novel, Red River, set in a village in Assam. Fortunately, the readings from the novel were all in English. An interesting, cheap night out! By the time we got home, I'd decided I needed to head for Newcastle tomorrow to help Kath out, who seems to be struggling a bit with the aged folks...bought a ticket for an 1130 train tomorrow morning. Eddy York had left a phone message in response to my flagging up Howard Gray's passing...I gave him a quick ring before bed...may see him at the funeral.