Night visitation

Up on the embankment in the dark it looked like something from Close Encounters. Great Haywood marina, by and large, is very peaceful. A railway runs along one side and, every hour or so, a Virgin train tears past. Apart from that it's pretty quiet. Last night the idyll was shattered in the middle of the night, for the second time in a fortnight, by a Network Rail maintenance team. The loco, its accompanying wagons and their floodlights created a strange amalgam of shapes and silhouettes criss-crossed by figures in working gear. Just far away for them not to keep their voices down, just near enough for us to hear everything, and for the regularly sounded horn to keep us from sleep. My best beloved gave up, went off to read in front of the fire. I'd just be drifting off, when the horn would jolt me awake again. There must be something singularly wrong with the track by the marina – they stayed there for ages. "Beep-beep, beep-beep" it went. Bye-bye to an early morning rise for a productive day.

We're obviously out of condition. In Brazil we slept through all-night parties next door. Today we're having a quiet day recovering with the help of home-made soup, home-made bread and home-made Dutch apple cake!