4863/17783
(Alan Walker has informed me that I misnumbered blogs from 9th Feb, so have been four out for last year and a bit, but also that I have miscounted the number of days in my life, and am actually on 17783 today, not 17518 as I thought - if the website he directed to me is accurate then that seems to be the case)
Onwards to Norwich, where my wife and daughter had arrived at our bed and breakfast about 20 minutes before us. Amazing to see them and incredible the progress my daughter has made while I’ve been away. She can now walk four or five paces before falling over and she can also nod. She’s been able to shake her head for a long time, but not been keen to nod, but maybe it’s taken us this long to something agreeable. She was also much better than when I’d left (though my wife has been through a tough time with her) and seemed bigger and more wriggly than usual!
I gave Catie a break by taking Phoebe for a walk into Norwich town, but I foolishly went by the map in my tired head and ended up going entirely the wrong way and passing through some kind of passage back to the 1960s and happening across a place called Anglia Square, (where apparently the Alan Partridge movie had had its premiere). It was quite a sight.
But then I got more lost, got back on track and got lost again. After about an hour I thought I was heading for the shops at last and I was just thinking to myself, “I wonder if I will bump into Adam Buxton”. It seemed unlikely. Norwich is a big place. But literally twenty seconds after I had that thought I came to a framing shop and had to wait for a car to pull out of the parking space in front of it. A mud-strewn 4 by 4 then turned into another space and the driver waved, I thought to acknowledge that he’d been in danger of cutting me up. But I looked again and saw the kind, bearded face of the man I had just been wondering if I’d meet. I had conjured Count Buckules up out of thin air. You probably only get three wishes that are granted in a life time and I had wasted one of mine apparating a man who I had just seen a couple of weeks ago. I could have wished for Gemma Chan. But no. I got Buxton.
It was a strange coincidence, both that I had been thinking of him and that my stupidity had meant that I was in this rather obscure part of Norwich. We briefly chatted and Adam confirmed that I was now back on track for the city centre. It was like he was a guardian angel sent by Jesus to point me in the right direction. I’d have preferred the angel Adam Buxton to have turned up an hour ago and made me turn right out of my B&B rather than left or to have given me the Euro lottery numbers, but you can’t have it all.
My three hour trawl around Norwich should have taken it out of me a bit, but the Playhouse crowd always lift my spirits and we had a lot of fun (the first half took ten minutes longer than usual as I kept elaborating and thanking a woman in the front row for being my testicle muse). Last year at 40 days old, Phoebe had come on to stage with me at the end of Lord of the Dance Settee, tonight she was in the theatre again, in her pram as Catie watched from the back. I had thought Phoebe might heckle me, but she slept throughout, only waking when we got back to the hotel room when she wanted to play for 45 minutes, even though I wanted to sleep. But man it’s so good to see her again that I don’t even care.
