Virginia and I got married in July then had a honeymoon in the Lake District. The wedding passed off well - the sun shone at the right times for the pictures, I survived making a speech in public. The Lake District is a key area for me because of the Arthur Ransome connections. His Swallows and Amazons books are key images to me. But the Lakes have other connections - Beatrix Potter who in later life was important in Britain's National Trust. The Lake poets. Just the harmonious scenery. A place to wander lonely as a cloud - but we stayed in the valleys.

Virginia and I had a long weekend in "Eastbourne". This resort on Britain's south coast seems to be a favourite resort for the elderly - Wallace Arnold coaches disgorged OAPs into hotels where they stayed sitting in chairs. Mixed weather - some fine sunshine but also rain - we got wet and had to take refuge in a fish and chip place to have an early supper after seeing the pier. The pier was a little rundown but had a shop making and selling glass ornaments, I got Virginia a small glass elephant (admiring the skill of the young girl wrapping the glassware). Enjoyed a museum of shops of yesteryear as well as the Science Park at the old Herstmonceux Observatory. Some marvellous machines to play with - one turned gears and wheels and conveyors using water power.

I went to the 2004 Adventure Convention in Coventry, staying at the "Allesley Hotel". This is partly a social occasion to catch up with friends I see each year. Most of those there started with text adventures and some still produce them. Each year someone does a text adventure which is is used for the Megapoints Competition - the only time I play text adventures now. There is still life in text adventures - this year's game by David Hebblethwaite entitled "No Milk Today" was fresh and amusing. After a hunt through Coventry for a firewire cable I showed my efforts in the line of graphic adventures. Some there were inspired by how possible it is to do a game just using pictures from a digital camera. I look forward to what they may produce.

We saw the New Year in quietly in the Ipswich area. I didn't do the homework of finding out what there was to see, where exactly it was, and when it was open. Something to remember to do for any future trips. There wasn't a lot that was open which was a bind. Happily a Pizza Hut was open for lunch and supper on the 1st itself as the hotel was only doing bar snacks. Bought Boggle at a toys R us and played a few games of that as well as some of the puzzles in a puzzle magazine.. We went to Dunwich Heath that day - a coastal area undergoing constant erosion. I remembered having been to when we got there. Quite crowded – we walked along the cliff top heath rather than on the beach. On the 2nd we went to church at Whitehouse Baptist Church – didn't stay for coffee as we could have done but headed to Sutton Hoo. Which got very crowded in the cafeteria after we had done a walk to see the burial grounds of the pagan kings at the dawn of Anglo-Saxon history. Tiny they were – not the large barrows Tolkien led me to expect. But it was a window onto a time of change. Glad we went anyway. The exhibition did its best to bring that time alive, the precious items are in the British Museum.