The day they returned from a speaking engagement in Birmingham "Bertie fell ill of shingles and then I fell ill of chicken pox (about thirty years later than anyone has ever had them. Most humiliating!) and for six weeks we have been unable to communicate with the outer world." BR "had excruciating pain for several weeks and had to be kept under heavy drugs to dull it. The pain has now expended itself, except for short and infrequent bouts, and he is very much better though still rather weak and tottery." "We take little toddles in the sun and read bad books and see no one and seek to preserve the total emptiness of our respective heads."