The main business of today was a full dress rehearsal for Gilbert & Sullivan's Iolanthe in the afternoon so I stayed on the boat all morning. It was bitterly cold so I cranked up my coal-burning stove, drank coffee and lived better than any king.

After finishing my editing of the Valentine Dialogue ready for the re-opening of PC Hut I investigated the true nature of kingship by browsing through a book of the letters of Henry VIII borrowed from Ashford Library. He was quite besotted with Anne Boleyn. Indeed his determination to marry her seems to have been his principal concern. I came away feeling sorry for Cardinal Wolsey who had the unenviable task of translating this obsession into a foreign policy that would benefit rather than harm the interests he represented in the never-ending balancing of dynastic power that passed for diplomacy in those days.

Ryesingers are putting on their annual performance of Gilbert & Sullivan at the end of next week. This year it is Iolanthe. I spoke to Lesley Brownbill when I got back to Rye at the weekend to offer my services. ‘Of course you can learn the tenor part in two weeks!’ Of course. And so I have been drafted in to strengthen the House of Peers. We peers of the realm strutted around in our hunting 'n shooting garb... well-wrapped against the inclement weather inside the Rye Community Centre.

Not so the poor fairies who spent the afternoon tripping hither and thither in the freezing cold. There is heating in the hall but someone somewhere had forgotten to instruct the person that mattered to switch it on. No shortage of witty repartee. Iolanthe should have stayed at the bottom of the stream with the frogs; if you think that it's love that makes the world go round then you've never been in a freezing cold rehearsal hall in the middle of winter etc. Everybody survived. Hardy bunch the British.

A meeting was scheduled with Walker & Walker at noon the following day so I spent the evening preparing myself. The first thing was a note to myself outlining my priorities. Next a letter to my daughter outlining my plans. Finally a series of small briefing papers for my solicitor Brian Walker. The key part of the plan is a quasi-public meeting a week before Easter for the Friends of Connie Lindqvist.

I hope to get one of the rooms in Rye Town Hall. I drafted out an agenda for this Valhalla meeting. After spelling out my obligations under the terms of Connie's will I would brief them on the two trusts being set up and the two publishing projects scheduled for Christmas 2006. The meeting would then be open for discussion and end with invitations to sign up to help make the various projects happen.

Heidi and I have been trying to patch things up between us but have now given up the unequal struggle. Here are the some of the things that Heidi e-mailed during the final sad day of our relationship. Part of me is not sure of what I want but I know I don’t want to jerk you around and at present I have not the energy to crank up the feelings and the relationship after all that’s been said only to be back at the same point as before. I am not sure we can settle our fundamental differences…or I just don’t love enough to risk the journey. I appreciate that you are wanting to make it work somehow but while I do fear a break up what I fear more is our repetitive arguments which eventually result in the bottom line that our idea of conduct in a relationship is very different.

Both of us have thought that several times we made enough concessions to make it work and yet here we are again. My way makes you unhappy which creates stress on both sides and your way…to get enmeshed as you wish…makes me feel unhappy which also creates stress on both sides. The things said can't be washed under the carpet. They mean something to each of us and not talking and not saying how we feel would create problems.

I just can't see a way forward…at least not at the moment…a quick patch up isn't going to work for my part. From what you said I understand that if I can't give you what or how you want it is the end so you feel free as a single person to look for another woman who can be in a partnership as you want. I understand that too as you have a lot to offer. You ask what you can do? I would not ask for you to change what you need and what you need to do as in the end the unhappiness would surface anyway and one should not change a partner but be able to accept where they are at. While we accept certain things about each other there are fundamental characteristics that press our buttons and love is just not enough to overcome, I feel. Breaking up is hard to do. But now for quite a different subject.

Prince Charles has his private journals are all over the tabloids this week. Far from harming his reputation they will do it a power of good. On Tony Blair: 'He is a most enjoyable person to talk to. He gives the impression of listening to what one says, which I find astonishing.' Just so!