Dispatches

No post from me the last couple of days because we have our Indian friends staying with us and, naturally, we go out and do things. Today we are off to the sea. The weather is grey and edge-of-mizzly. Yesterday, while C and V (one of the friends were u in Norwich) I took P and S round Wymondham. We looked into the abbey where the Alexander Quartet happened to practising the Schumann Piano Quintet. We stayed and listened for twenty minutes or so, before moving on. It had begun to drip slightly with rain. We stopped in front of the house where Sebald's Emigrants begins - the next street but one down from ours - then, as we were looking at the war memorial with its nine Bunns (beginning with Bertie Bunn) the rain began to fall more heavily. As we moved up the high street it grew progressively heavier. We ducked into the local small cafe, ordered tea, tea-cakes, etc, and then the downpour started. It was, as P and S said, very like the monsoon. Soon the street was running like a river with plastic bottles flowing down it. Cars threw up great gouts of spray, nor did it stop but the rain, if anything, grew more insistent, more apocalyptic. Eventually, fearing our roof might be leaking - there is a leak when the rain is heavy and from a particular direction - I dashed home and, thankfully, found it dry.

The talk has been of poetry and writing, ever since the conference ended and after my reading at St Albans on Friday night to which P and S accompanied us. An old school friend, whom I hadn't seen for close on fifty years came along. I talked and read for an hour and spent some time on translation at the end. Verulaneum is beautiful. P and S thought they were in an enchanted country. The reading went very well and we almost sold out of the Collected.

Much to say and think about regarding the conference, but under different circumstances. This coming week is hectic and I am girding whatever loins I have. Unfortunately I have pulled a muscle I have pulled before in my back. Quick dose of Ibuprofen and some cream might see me through the day. And now the sun is out.