3rd July, 2009

Timing is everything in life so I am feeling pretty good about myself this week having spent two days of it working from home in enforced quarantine following Hen's swine flu alert ( the more I think about the circumstances behind this episode the more suspicious I am that we have been played by her). Anyway, working from home has its advantages and given that the government have now given up any pretence of trying to contain the pandemic I somehow doubt I will be sectioned next time round.



Transpires that our youngest daughter Lottie is a bit of a chip off her brother's block. No respecter of history. You may recall the story I told you late last year when Bob had almost managed to burn down Higham Church, which has stood since the Domesday Book, during a Christmas Eve Candle service... The other day Lottie and her mother were walking past the south side of the Kings College Chapel in Cambridge which is clad with scaffolding at the moment. Sophie pondered out loud what they might be doing to the building. Kings College Chapel as you can see from the pictures below is magnificent. It was completed in 1547, having taken over 100 years and the patronage of five kings to construct. Henry VI, aged only 19, laid the first stone on Passion Sunday, 1441 and Henry VIII just managed to complete the job - the window glazing, the screen and much of the woodwork - by the time he died. It is a history that is all but lost on Lottie whose response to her mothers musing was.... "I think they are probably building a new one, Mummy. It is very old you know."

Talking of history, for reasons too tedious to elaborate on I have become fixated by the 800 metres race. I have measured out an 800 metres track on the roads outside our house. I ran it the other day and almost died, but felt I had done rather well actually. Being a modest sort I initially had no presumption at all on world record times, nevertheless I looked them up to see what standard I ought to be aspiring to. And so I have set myself a challenge. Georgette Lenoir, a French lady, held the world record.......in August 1922 when she set a time of 2 mins 30 seconds at the Paris Olympic Games. At the moment I am at least 10 seconds off her pace, but I am as determined as I am modest and will keep you in touch as you will no doubt be riveted by this.