13.A successful day

This morning we drove to Heather for my slide talk on medical aspects of art to her friends in the music group, etc.

Heather's new laminate wooden floor is superb. And Lyle accomplished several other improvements to her satisfaction.

I had arranged the slide sequence only the previous evening. I had discovered quite a number or unreported medical conditions portrayed in paintings, and Patrick Horne had kindly fed me with others that I had not been aware of. Even after pruning, there were still 108 slides left. Plus one Rubens painting that I had discovered only 48 hours earlier: no time to make a slide - I prepared an A-4 printout.

The maximum length of my talk had to be one hour. It was worrying. So I kept my text and its print-out to the bare essentials and planned to speed up the delivery. In the end it lasted just 45 minutes. Needless to mention, the odd humorous comment was still preserved. Judith, who is a very useful and strict critic, did praise it more explicitly than many previous talks. 'The best thing about it', she said, 'was its brevity'.
The 20 or so people there included Daphne, Jeff and also Jane, who behaved very well indeed. I am told that the people enjoyed it - one or two actually inquired about a further talk.

Heather had decided on hot soup [mushroom, or Thai chicken] with slices of Challah. It was an inspired decision and a great success. Mum made a cheesecake [but forgot to put in the sultanas that I love..] and Helen made a superb ginger cake.

After everybody left, I relaxed on the settee and I woke up two hours later. In the style of our primary school essays, 'we returned home tired but satisfied'.

Tomorrow we are visiting Hugh and Bernadette in Manchester.