Today’s the day for our family celebration meal – Into the Sixties – marking our both reaching the age of 60 as well as our being married in the 60s. We have at last count 34 coming to eat with us at Peter Beales’ renowned Sweet Briar Bistro, near Attleborough. We worked out that if all our relatives had come it would have been around 60, possibly more, but the bistro doesn’t hold that many.

The picture, appropriately, is from the 60s. Dot is sitting in the shadow of Liverpool Cathedral and rather stealing its glory. We were up there on a journalistic mission for The Christian, I seem to remember. I have no idea what it was, but I’m pretty sure David Coomes and probably someone else (a photographer?!) were there too. It must have been 1968, I think – certainly before we were married, but, judging by that ring, after we were engaged.

This is sort of a miracle. The picture is of my two grandchildren, Oliver and Amy, playing at home, but it comes from a film that vanished completely for over a month. It was in my car with two other films, waiting to be processed. When I went to take them out, there were only two. We searched the car thoroughly, more than once, but there was no sign of it. I assumed I must have knocked it out of the car when I took some other stuff out, and even went so far as to go and look for it where I had been parked. But nothing. I gave it up.

The other day I went to get in the car, and the film was lying in plain sight beside the driver’s seat.
This clearly demonstrates the existence of other dimensions into which things like films can slip for a while, and then reappear.

Meanwhile I went to Wells today with the poetry vending machine. Technically the PVM was in Annette and Mike’s car, following behind me. For some reason it failed to slip into another dimension and duly arrived at Wells for the weekend’s poetry festival. The trick will be getting it back. Sunny day, but bitterly cold at Wells in a northerly wind. Stunningly beautiful, though.

A Hemsby h0liday, possibly about 1958. A group of us in the Valley – an area between the dunes – which was a favourite spot. Football strategically placed. I am in the foreground, with my cousin Edward behind. Then his mother Olive, and her two sisters – Eileen and my mother, Phyllis.

Back in 2006, a beautiful spring day here in Norwich, and the carpet layer is just completing his work, which means improvements to the house are almost finished. However, Dot is still finding plenty to do in the garden, cleaning the utility room and the rest of the house.

Back to my family – this is my father and mother with my two brothers, Andrew and Philip, at Land’s End. The picture was taken during our last family holiday at Perranporth. Of course at the time I thought it would go on for ever, and I’m sure the others did too. Quite a good shot for a ten-year-old, with the interesting low angle, just before I stepped backwards off the cliff.  Oh no I didn’t.

The plumbers have put on the new taps in the bathroom, and now we are on the brink of completing the current round of house improvements: the carpet men come tomorrow to do the stairs. Yesterday afternoon I spent a couple of hours with Rupert Mallin, Lisa D’Onofrio and Lisa’s husband trying to fix one of the vending machines. We (ie they) eventually got it to work, and we packed it with boxes, ready for transportation to Wells on Friday.

Went to new-look agm at St Luke’s Church in the evening, where Howard was presented with his fine wine for completing lots of years as churchwarden. He also spoke in a debate on whether churches should tithe their income and convinced just about everyone that they should give more than a tithe. Quite an achievement, from the heart. There was also a meal.

Afterwards I fell asleep on the sofa (not unusual) while watching a TV programme about colour films in the 1920s. It would have been nice to have some of our family.

This is from the 50s, and it shows a perky looking Gloria Roberts with her brother Adrian, both from Corwen in North Wales and both cousins of my wife Dot. Their mother Margery was in the previous picture. To the right of them are Dot (far right) and her sister Doreen, who must have died not long after this was taken after contracting pneumonia.

As I write, a duo of plumbers are completing installation of taps in the bathroom, which is a bit of a relief. Dot has just gone to investigate a ringing alarm down the road. Apart from that, it’s all quiet.

A little blurred, but with its heart in the right place – the right place in this case being the Cousens home in Mundesley Road, North Walsham. Not 59, the one before that. In the picture are, I believe, Dot’s grandfather Bertie Cousens and his wife Emma (nee Pike). Also Dot’s Aunt Margery at the back, her mother Dorothy, right, and Aunt Jessie, in the centre at the front.

This is one of a number of pics in album shown me by Jessie’s son, Roger.

Today we have been making final arrangements for the celebration meal on Saturday – dropped in on the Beales family.  It’s feeling a bit more like spring, but struggling to maintain it.

And this, I should imagine, is one of the last pictures taken of my mother before she became a widow.  She is posing in untypically daring style on the bonnet of our Rover while we were on our last family summer holiday at Perranporth, Cornwall, in August 1955. Or maybe she was daring in those days, before my father died.

We stayed in a caravan. I remember running excitedly across the beach to the village to buy the latest Enid Blyton book, which was probably River of Adventure, in hardback. I seem to recall that it was 7s 6d (37.5p). The beach was rocky with hard sand.

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.