This is probably the last picture taken of my father (third from left). He is picking the names of children from a bag: the lucky ones got to go on a foreign trip – to Yugoslavia, I think. If he had survived we might have gone too.

Yesterday and today have been a bit more spring-like .  Tonight I play in the last chess match of the season at Wymondham. Yesterday Dot and I went to the Archant agm, principally for the buffet. Very few familiar faces there. In the evening we had a meal at the Trafalgar Restaurant in the Nelson hotel (Times tokens). Not bad. Excellent wine and service.

Today is my father’s birthday. He and my mum are pictured above on their honeymoon, I believe, in or near Strathyre in Scotland. Dot and I also honeymooned there, and last year we visited the village for the first time in many years and believe we identified the cottage!

The other day I noticed something odd on my father’s grave. I had always believed he was born in 1912, but his tombstone has him dying on 13 March, 1956 aged 42.  If the birth date I believed is in fact correct, he must have been 43 and nearly 44 when he died. Clearly more research is needed.

An excellent Easter at church, with three really good events: an “ambient wonder” Maundy Thursday evening, with interactive opportunities; a Good Friday event at St Luke’s concentrating on the persecuted church; and an Easter Sunday Communion at St Augustine’s which I organised, expoecting a very small congregation. We had about 30 (big for us), and it all went well, even the strawberried, sparkling wine and Dot’s delicious simnal cake afterwards.
Used some songs and poems of mine, including

EASTER SKY

Is this a crucifixion or a resurrection sky?
Is it the sky he was pinned to like a butterfly
skin running with blood
clouds stained sunset-red?
Or is it the ash-black, volcano-scarred sky
that lets no life through?
Darkness at noon, blank
as a worn-down tombstone,
words weathered away?
Is it the lightning-bright sky
torn apart by splinters of broken law,
channels for tingling spirit?
Or is it the arching white glory of an aching Easter dawn,
transfiguring, clean sheet, reborn?

And if a man walks down the valley and asks
the way to heaven,
does he look up?
Does he stumble as stones roll away?
Is there a lamb in the garden,
or someone praying beneath a tree?
A woman may meet an angel
out of the blue:
bread and wine may be set on rock,
waiting for fire.
Almost anything could happen.

But keep watching the sky.
Soon the stars will sing together
and you may catch a glimpse of the shining, shekinah walls
of the city of God, though not
as you imagined them.
The sky always surprises you.

It’s turned wintry again, so I thought I’d go for another snow picture – this time the start of the snow at Lothersdale, as the air starts to fill with white and change texture.

Everything very hectic this week, for some reason.

April Fool! Well, sort of. This picture  is still March, and still winter – and was taken of course at Lothersdale. Today is blustery but definitely heading in the direction of spring. Had a good meal at Alburgh last night and didn’t get back tremendously late. Another meal out tonight, at our neighbours’ – one of whom is French and the other Italian. I anticipate an Indian.

A rather lovely picture of grandson Oliver walking through a rather small section of woods in the park. Quite mild today. Met with a student from Fakenham and her mentor, Jo Stone, in the Forum, had lunch, gave her some advice about journalism and gave her  a short tour of Prospect House. Just in time – Editorial about to move out for refurbishment. Many boxes.

Now about to go to Alburgh for a meal with Julia and Alan.

Nanna gets into a bit of trouble among the fallen leaves with grandchildren Oliver and Amy. This picture was taken last weekend in the small park on the hill above our house. Oliver thought it was hugely funny to throw dead leaves at his grandmother, who joined in enthusiastically. Amy was quickly drawn in.

Today we called on Annette and Mike at The Barn and saw some of Annette’s new paintings. Quite exciting! Then on to Alburgh School, where Dot was greeted warmly by everyone, especially the children.  Unfortunate timing, because the new head was in process of being chosen: governors and LEA representatives present and in choosing mode.  Still nice, though.

Back in Norwich, went to look at some taps: surprisingly difficult choice.  Then I finished my column for Monday, and as I write the floor man is trying to make our landing floor fit – a rather difficult task in view of what he has to work with.

All part of the family – my mother’s side. Here we have two of my cousins  –  left centre Eddie Potter, who is the son of my Aunt Olive and Uncle Ted, with his wife Christine far left; and Sandy Maxwell, daughter of my Aunt Vi and Uncle Bill, with her husband Alex. Olive and Vi are sisters to my mother. Vi is still alive and living in South Africa with her second husband Richard Crawford. Bill’s surname was Shorten. Olive and Ted have both died fairly recently. This picture was taken at Eddie and Christine’s home in Fencepiece Road, Ilford, during a flying visit by Sandy and Alex.

Weather now is much milder than it has been, but extremely windy today. I went to the memorial service for Reg Brighton yesterday – a very old friend from Surrey Chapel. Packed church. Spoke to some almost equally old friends. Reg was 87.  At the same time Dot went to a funeral in Cromer of Alison McCrory, who died from cancer at 64, as I mentioned last time. 

I have just entered three poems in the Fish Publishing poetry competition, partly because I like the work of one of the judges – Michael McCarty. Here is one of his poems:

In Memoriam

Let’s say the year is twenty-one-sixteen.
The headstone says I died in twenty-thirty-six.
Though I’ve been dead these eighty years
I’m pleased to see I lived to ninety one.

The graveyard perched
above an S of sea where boats can rest
along a lonely curve of shore
where tourists no longer come.

Beneath my name: the dates of birth and death,
some long-forgotten lines I haven’t written yet,
Beside my grave a grass-grown gravel path
unused except by fishermen at night.

I see a woman, pushing back the grass.
She’s twenty-five or so,
Researching for her PhD, her subject:
Forgotten Irish Poets.

She found some poems of mine on micro-disk
buried in the archives of a library
in Edmonton Alberta, where
I was almost famous once.

She stands among small raindrops
as I once stood
in the graveyard at Drumcliff,
She weeps as I wept over Yeats.

A strand of hair clings to her face.
A briar sways in unnoticed wind.
Far below the waves say hush.
Close by a blackbird sings.

Back in time again –  about 34 years. This is my son David and his mother, probably shortly after moving to Norfolk in July 1972, when I started 30 years’ work at the Eastern Daily Press. We may have been staying at my mother’s in Norwich at the time, or possibly at Dot’s parents’ house in North Walsham. We moved into our own house in the November – Holly Bank, Yelverton, where we stayed for 12 years. It seemed a long time.

Today is a bit milder, and David is bringing his own son and daughter to our house tomorrow. Our kitchen has just been upgraded – the tiler finished today, and Dot has quickly brought the entire house up to scratch. Hope today’s rain eases off tomorrow.

Have just discovered that the person who owned the care home at Cromer, and who looked after Dot’s mum so well, died on March 11 – Alison McCrory. Bit of a shock.

Going back in time again – this is a photograph of Loch Lubnaig, near Strathyre in Scotland, where Dot and I spent some of our honeymoon in a white-washed, thick-walled cottage that was much colder inside than out. This was in August 1968, and the weather was glorious.

Some years earlier, in the mid-1930s, my parents had also spent theit honeymoon here. In fact the cottage we used belonged to someone they met then.

Here in Norfolk the weather is still bitterly cold, and I am due for a five-mile yomp tomorrow. Dot took a friend to Walsingham today, and I prepared some stuff for tonight’s group. Dot is even now cooking a vegetarian meal. Time for spring, surely?

OK, I admit it. This is me. Whenever I think of myself as a baby (which isn’t all that often), this is the picture I think of. I am sitting in my pram and looking pretty pleased with myself. I’ve no idea why. It must have been taken at 15 Brian Avenue, Norwich, my first home, in early 1946.

Back in 2006 I woke up in the middle  of last night with a bad attack of rhinitis, which hasn’t got any better. Don’t know if it’s a straight cold or an allergy to something in the kitchen (dust, glue…) but I can definitely do without it. Annoying how you can be so debilitated when the rest of your body feels fine – relatively speaking.

As I write, the worktop is about complete and the sink is being installed.