Ken doesn't "do" ill normally but he was all January, to the point of cancelling his ski holiday. His doctor, Tony Kerman, packed him off to University College Hospital for tests for prostate cancer, which lasted until October but which concluded that there was nothing wrong with him, although some of them were exceedingly intrusive, involving miniature TV cameras & searchlights into what Avis described as her private property.

Everyone at UCLH in Mark Emberton's Urology team (nicknamed by Ken, the "piss-takers") were very helpful & even charming. Avis had more good experiences with the NHS this year, culminating at Moorfields Eye Hospital, where two surgeons simultaneously sorted out her eyelids. We will not hear of any criticism of the NHS. So there.

The Gladstones, Davis & April, remembered that Avis' birthday was on a Sunday this year & invited us down to their country seat at Wotton. We were rather unprepared for the magnificence of this Sir John Soane building (rather mucked about by later architects), only having seen it from the distance before. Nor did we expect a walk round the garden to take a couple of hours. It was very kind of the Gladstones to lay on a superb lunch & interesting company.