Stone

All Saints Stone is one of the most Southerly of Gloucestershire's churches and the 188th I have photographed - which I did this sunny afternoon after dropping Agnes back in Bristol. Its tall tower and spire can be seen for miles around this flat part of the old county, not far from the Severn.

Pre-birthday tea

Ida's birthday is not till tomorrow, but the celebrations are taking place in advance this year, for one reason or another. Agnes' Mamma Mia! cake set a triumphant seal on the children's party last Friday, and this afternoon Thomas, Caroline and I pitched up in time for tea in Bristol, and seeing the joy of a seven-year-old open presents.

Serious food

We benefitted from it being Agnes' birthday yesterday - and her wishing to celebrate elsewhere rather than by taking up the posh lunch tickets we'd bought her. Looking through the programme a while back, she had been full of enthusiasm about Morito coming to our festival: we on the other hand had never heard of Sam and Sam Clark, half of whom were there in the Spiegeltent to promote the inevitable book. Great food, and with it six delicious wines (from Laithwaites) - and also good company on our table, though from the photograph you might not gain that impression.

Before the lunch, I had been to another Times Leader Conference on stage. Much talk around the subject of poor Alan Henning - as David Aaronovitch, to applause, described him, "a modern martyr".

In the evening we drove to Tetbury for our one and only visit to this year's music festival on its final evening. It was a happy choice, as the Dunedin Consort's Bach St John Passion was one of the very best TMF concerts we have experienced - and there have been a good few over the years. A superb performance all round.

Family value

Half our quartet have been in the public eye this past weekend. Agnes was in Foyles, Bristol speaking at a publishing event; and Thomas was quoted in an article entitled "Who said Britons were drunk, dirty and deplorable?" in Saturday's Guardian. "People here do it slowly but surely," he was quoted as saying (a line which needs a little context).

Seven plus

No grandchildren, but all four children were with us for lunch today - plus Mini; and it's always difficult to prevent Caroline's dog from muscling in on the act. ("No balls inside, Floss!")

Skyping

We sat in the garden this afternoon, talking to Thomas in Lisbon via the iPad. Agnes photographed us on her phone. The wonders of technology!

Listen with mother

Though it's a pity to bin the borage when still in flower, the garden does look a bit like a hayfield: we are gradually working towards restoring some order. Meanwhile, it's a pleasure to have Agnes and Ida here for a quietish weekend. One of the Sadler's Wells stories is on the go.

Green Doors '14

Tonight, a dozen of us have been discussing another weekend of open houses and gardens next year, to promote energy efficiency and conservation generally. This will be Cheltenham's third, and is fixed for 20th/21st September. What we need are more people to come forward, to allow their improvements etc. to go on show.

I took the photograph at the exquisite Young Dürer exhibition in Somerset House: I visited it yesterday afternoon. It features the 23-year-old Dürer's wife, "My Agnes" as he called her, a drawing on loan from the Albertina.

Medicine Unboxed

Agnes knows Dr. Sam Guglani who is on her creative writing course: a man of many parts, Sam is the brains behind the two-day part conference, part entertainment on at our local Parabola Arts Centre this weekend, Medicine Unboxed. Though it has been running for more than a decade, this is the first time I've been brave enough to book for it, and so far without regret.

As I suspected it would be, the 325-seat theatre (sold out) was mainly full of medics of one variety or another, but the balance of contributors ensured that the content was largely intelligible to a general audience. Unusually for an event in a Cheltenham auditorium, I felt well above the average age.

This year's theme was "voice", echoed by contributions from the Birmingham Medical School Choir and the "remarkable" duo, Melanie Pappenheim and Rebecca Askew. (I had first heard them five years ago at the Riverside Studios.)

One of today's highlights was Fi Glover's talk about Radio 4's Listening Project. She described it as consenting eavesdropping, vitamin supplements for the soul. A move to call it "The Talking Project" had been resisted. "The best doctors are the ones who really listen," concluded someone.

100 up

Agnes completed her 100th poem at home in Bristol between lunch and tea on the first day's play at Brisbane. More than satisfactory in both quarters: with Gift Aid, the 24-hour poetry slam will have raised the best part of £2,000 for the typhoon victims, whereas, in the cricket, Australia look to be pushed to reach the statutory 400 they might be said to need as a platform for a win in the First Test.

Everybody following our daughter's 24 hour burst of creativity has expressed amazement at the richness of her imagination. Let's hope the experience, as well as helping the needy, opens some doors for her!

Meanwhile, in London today, we managed a visit to Prue Cooper's show at Abbott and Holder. We have long admired her press-moulded earthenware pots, as quirky as they are useful. Her blurb says she likes to make "things that communicate through being used... the lettering being integral to the design in the same way that the words are integral to a song... We're bound together by stories."

My favourite in the present exhibition is this one photographed: I shall never now be able to listen with proper seriousness to Marcellus' questioning of Barnardo in the opening scene of Hamlet.

Earlier, at a cousins' lunch, I overheard part of a discussion about houses in the country, and the husband of one cousin asking another (female), never before encountered, "Is your seat large?"

Tim Britten RIP

I knew Tim from church, but not his name. Then we saw each other at Longborough and elsewhere, and more recently sitting in the front row at Cineworld for the Met opera relays, which he loved. He told me he was going into hospital to have his back straightened: I could see he was apprehensive about it. Sadly, he never returned home.

At his funeral mass this morning, a friend recited The Burren Prayer by John O’Donohue, a new one to me and very beautiful: it contains the lines, "May the light that turns the limestone white remind us that our solitude is bright." Perfect for someone "who didn't always carry the world lightly" - and for Charles, his grieving partner of four decades.

Altogether, it was very proper occasion. Not many of those present were Catholic (Tim was a convert), but Fr. Bosco welcomed all comers most warmly and openly. Noone should have been mystified - unlike yesterday evening: Caroline and I went to hear Professor Rich Pancost talking about the chemistry of past and future global warming. I felt well out of my depth, though the message was clear: our politicians need to do something urgently!

Argument rages meanwhile about whether or not Typhoon Haiyan was a symptom of man-made climate change. Does it matter? Agnes thinks not, and has undertaken to write 100 poems in a day next Wednesday, if people will sponsor her in aid of the Phillippines' victims. Brilliant!

birthday, ppp

The birthday girl was feeling well below par today, alas. It's not the first time that her temperature, rather than Ida herself, seems to have risen to the occasion. Here she is wearing a smart new (birthday) pair of shoes, her first lace-ups, and opening the Simon Brett engraving I gave her for her bedroom wall.

Cake time

A day late, we celebrated Agnes' birthday yesterday. Nine of us, at lunchtime (Ida had a tea party to attend). Mini made a beautiful cake, adorned with blackberries, and raspberries from the garden. It was warm enough to drink our coffee outside afterwards, but this long Indian Summer must tail off soon surely.

This evening, we have been to a play reading: No, I just don't believe it! (a two-hander by Jean-Claude Grumberg) has been performed in its original French, but not in its English translation. It's about Alzheimer's creeping up - a bit near the knuckle, both for me and (perhaps) the cast. Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour's presence on stage ensured the big tent was packed. The hour-long reading preceded a discussion between the translator, Jonathan Kent and critic Agnès Poirier - a little drawn out, but more thought-provoking in some ways than the play.

Early for school

Agnes is in Oxford for the final residential of the first year of her creative writing Masters; which explains my presence in Bristol, ensuring Ida turns up on time at school. (We were even there early today, which is apparently an unheard of event.)

The atmosphere at Ashley Down Infants bears no relationship whatever to that of my own first school, Swans Close, Stratford-on-Avon, which was relatively speaking a grim place, ruled over by a Miss Short and a Miss Walsh: odd that I can recall their names even after a lapse of 65 years. Ida's playground impressed me no end, with trouble-taking teachers and purposeful parents all milling. I suppose I was seeing it at the best time of year, warm and fine.

Winter at last

The snow lies thick now, and it's due to last for weeks! So, thank goodness nobody is planning going far this weekend - at least now that Agnes brought forward her trip to Oxford and we have cancelled our book group meeting in Worcester tomorrow. I have had sinusitis all week, so today was the first day I felt like putting my nose outside for any length of time - to walk along and collect a prescription. I must have been feeling below par to skip going to the National Theatre's Cineworld relay of "The Magistrate" last night: I was looking forward to it. Instead, we have Ida to entertain us.

Ballerina Flamenco

This is the name of the maiden apple tree Agnes has given me: it's for my birthday last May, but it only arrived a short while ago. That was in the middle of our cold spell, when the ground was frozen. Since then, it's hardly stopped raining, but the last day all the grandchildren are with us is today, so out we all went with the spade to dig a hole in the back lawn. Soil strata, worms, horse manure and blood, fish and bone mixture - all were subject to much comment amongst the three five- and six-year-olds.

Rising 5

Our granddaughter celebrated her fifth birthday at the weekend, and we were in Bristol yesterday, to taste some of the cake. Agnes and Ida seem to have settled happily into their new surroundings, Ida loving her school, just five minutes' walk from the house. Its playground seems pretty well-equipped. And in their tiny garden at home, there's now a trampoline, as well as two rabbits.

Dangerous age, Cynthia

Agnes had a big birthday yesterday. Mini found as many candles as we had around, but they weren't enough to do more than symbolise the event.

Swindon, hub of the universe

Thomas was over from Lisbon, Agnes and Ida have now immigrated (from Wales), Sarah has been in Scotland, William and Laurie in France, and Edmund all the way across to the Isle of Wight - oh, and we are just off to Italy. So where more natural for us to meet for a family reunion than downtown Swindon?

Mr. Move-it

DiY removals can be very exhausting, as Agnes and her stalwart partner Milo are finding out this weekend. Agnes and Ida are in transit from Presteigne - where they have spent two and a half happy years - to Horfield in Bristol. Since our marriage, we haven't had to move many times, thank God, and certainly never took a fruit tree with us. The sad thing for us is that we are due to go and stay in Presteigne next weekend, and Agnes won't be there.