I went in to see Isobel today with Dallas who had driven down from Milton Keynes. We arrived long after lunch and found Isobel alert and chatty. Her speech was perhaps not as good as the previous day, but still much better than usual. She and Dallas had an animated conversation. Dallas had brought with her two bunches of grapes and Isobel ate about half of these as we talked.

I was surprised to be given a copy of an e-mail by the nurses. It was from one of my old university friends, Geoff Dendle, who had lost our address but tracked down where Isobel was now living from details in the Christmas card. He had known Anne and was shocked to learn the same illness had affected Isobel. He had met Isobel once about twenty years ago. I had a long chat by telephone with him in the evening.

Jane and Derek had come in to see Isobel for an hour or so in the morning; Isobel remembered their visit and made some amusing comments about Derek.

We left Isobel at about a quarter to four, it was very light compared to yesterday and the roads posed no problems (not even when we diverted into the icy narrow back streets at Maypole to deliver a present to Anneyce).

I spent most of the evening on the telephone, firstly to Geoff and then to Isobel's mother. Then I had a call from a friend of Anne's mother's advising that she was recovering from a bad fall and mild stroke and would be spending Christmas and the New Year in a nursing home at Aberaeron.