Update

First things first. Since the last tally when JW was leading 35-30 we had a 1-1 draw at Erquy; then on JW's birthday, I won 3-0, and today he won 2-1 making it 38-35.

Today I saw Mr M, the surgeon, who was satisfied with my progress and doesn't want to see me again. He said he had asked for the photographs of the operation to be put on a CD and sent to me, and had wiped them off his hard disk. But this hadn't been done, and fortunately they would still be in the recycle bin. So they should be there and this time round, I hope they will be safely retrieved and sent.

Last Saturday was the annual High Elms picnic and Lyulph's great exhibition and lecture in the Downe Village Hall on the history of High Elms. Most unfortunately the memory card in our camera decided to pack up, so I'm relying on others to send me pictures of the event. JW took some, which I'll post in a minute. For Lyulph's
High Elms website www.highelms.info and for Ken Timbers' excellent photographs, web.mac.com/katim/iWeb/katim

On Wednesday Lyulph and I went to Welbeck Abbey to see the Hayter pastels of my great-great grandmother Adelaide Kemble in various operatic roles, plus an enormous portrait of her as Norma by Sir Francis Grant in 1842, the year she married Edward Sartoris, all commissioned by the eccentric 5th Duke of Portland when he was still the Marquess of Titchfield. He is said to have proposed to her in 1842, but there is no correspondence or any other record, or even of the Duke having been to see her on the stage. A groupie who was equally obsessed with Adelaide, Anna Jameson, wrote a description of each of the scenes in the Hayters, and presumably her published works have been trawled to see if they provide any clues. The only other line of inquiry that occurs to us is to find out whether Hayter or Grant left any papers.