Monthly Archives: January 2008

29 January 2008

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We enjoyed Whitlingham so much that we returned there on Sunday with Vicky and the children while David watched Spurs lose 3-1 to Liverpool in the FA Cup. Parts of it are very picturesque, the only problem being that it tends to be overrun by welly-wearing dog walkers talking intensely about cultural matters. Oliver went on ahead, and we found this lovely spot by the Broad as the sun was progressing down the sky: a small wooden landing stage about 30 yards off the main path. I shot the picture into the sun (of course) and told Oliver that he would be in shadow, which intrigued him. He didn’t seem to like the idea, but it made a good photo. Well, I like it.

Had a really good weekend altogether – went into the city on the Saturday to swap one of Oliver’s Christmas presents at John Lewis (he’d been given the same thing by two different people: I’m amazed it doesn’t happen more often). I used the opportunity to buy a new guitar tuner before rushing home in advance of the others to turn on the lamb stew. Quite nice weather, though coldish.

Went to church on the Sunday in the morning to do the music and wished I hadn’t. The two of them would have done just as well without me – “just as well” in this case meaning pretty bad. Tendency to rehearse in meticulous detail and then forget it entirely during the actual service.

Actually won a chess game last night: I was offered a draw in a position where my opponent had lots of pressure, but decided to carry on because I couldn’t see anything forcing and assumed he couldn’t either. Eventually won a long endgame, which was satisfying.

Today I head north to Hull – by train for the first time. The weather forecast is not good, but at the moment it’s fine here.

Still nothing in the EDP about my page ending, and no sign of the last one as promised – even though they had a stand-in piece today. I have tried to ring the deputy editor, but he’s not there. Again.

And Rupert has resigned from InPrint, which is a tremendous blow, as he was the driving force. I think he became fed up with being the driving force. So a few of us are having a meeting on Saturday to see where we’re going. More news when we find out.

22 January 2008

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This is Eddie, my cousin’s daughter’s child, who paid us a visit on Saturday, together with his grandparents and mum and dad. To me he looks exactly as his father (also Eddie) did when he was a child. They all came for a meal, and he was extremely well behaved and quite delightful. The five of them were up in Norwich for the weekend, which was bad luck as far as the weather went. For many days now – until today – it has been overbearingly grey, with plenty of rain.

Today we had some blue sky, the wind dropped, and it was pleasant. Dot and I took the opportunity to get out of the house and walked round the Broad at Whitlingham. I took a few pictures, some of which turned out very well. I have invested in a new fast memory card and a gorillapod – a small tripod that can be used to stabilise the camera practically anywhere.

Last night I travelled to Lowestoft to play chess – and lost again after getting a reasonably good position. Either my judgement is totally shot, or I’m getting too old to sustain concentration, or I’m very unlucky. The last is obviously favourite. Gave a lift to a teammate who I discovered is a paramedic: clearly I shall have to give him more lifts. Just in case.

I’ve sorted out my photographs on iPhoto up to the Event stage: I now have 56 events, and my next task is to tag all the pictures. Put three of this afternoon’s pictures on Flickr.

On Sunday we had an alternative guy called Adrian joining us on guitar – in short space of time he managed to upset pretty well everybody, and I have to hope he doesn’t show up next week. Not the right attitude, I know. The evening’s Ambient Wonder event was excellent, with a good attendance despite teeming rain. The theme was “new beginnings”: not strikingly original, but it was refreshingly unusual and left everyone – as far as one could tell – feeling optimistic.

This feeling disappeared for me yesterday when there was still no mention of my page ending in the paper, and no sign of the final page appearing. Felt quite low most of the day, alleviated in the afternoon by a visit to Jessie’s. Today my replacement was described as our “controversial new columnist”, but I haven’t seen him write anything controversial yet. Even Ms P R Bland-Bland still has her page. Bitter? Me?

18 January 2008

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A nice picture of grandson Oliver in serious mood. He and Amy are now taking swimming lessons.

I have some kind of scalp irritation around my right ear which makes it difficult to wear my glasses. As I can’t see close up without them, this is rather annoying. Still, it’s not painful, and I feel quite good otherwise. I’m down to 12st 5lb, which is not bad going.

We were going to have some friends round on Wednesday, but they could not come for family reasons – her father is very ill – so we were on our own after LD called with a letter of thanks about the Rohr event and stayed for tea and chat while Dot finished the ironing. Earlier I had patched up some wood on our back porch that was seriously coming apart, using wood filler that I moulded around the problem and then discovered shouldn’t come into contact with my skin. However, I have pretty resilient skin, and nothing seems to be amiss. Both hands are still attached to my arms. The result looks a mess but is rock solid: I see it as temporary until we can get the wood replaced. Dot is now thinking of swapping the contents of two of the upstairs bedrooms, which would involve a carpenter since her work area is attached to the wall. Maybe we would be able to combine the two jobs…

Meanwhile she is moving furniture round the living room – an activity she prefers to writing a book, which is understandable. She has a tape measure and is measuring everything. Bit unsettling.

Yesterday was Powerflush Day. Not a new national holiday, but a cleaning out of our central heating system. Clearly we had left it far too long. Huge amounts of sludge emerged, and the already big job expanded into something massive, with new pump and various other items. Fortunately we are over 60 and get it at about half price, but it’s still pretty expensive. On the plus side, the radiators now seem to be working: they had been gradually falling by the wayside. The British Gas engineer was extremely friendly and helpful, and rang back today to make sure everything was OK. I think it is.

While he was here he discovered that the lagging on our big cold tank was waterlogged – ie it had fallen into the water. Did it fall or was it pushed? If it was pushed, it must have been a long time ago. Getting it out was a tricky job, but I managed it with some help from Dot and only a small amount of water dripping down the pipe into the airing cupboard. It is now drying out in the garage, but we’ll probably get a new set, as we professionals call tank lagging.

Today I’ve started work on a book based on the characters in my EDP page. Working title: The Houseago Prophecy. Yesterday there was a letter in the EDP taking my name in vain for no apparent reason, so I replied to it, mentioning that alert readers might have noticed that my page had come to an end, expired, ceased to be, etc. This provoked a couple of e-mails sympathising – one from Bruce and one from a fairly regular correspondent – which was nice.

The weather both yesterday and today has been pretty awful – steady rain and overbearing greyness. Having the heating off yesterday was unpleasant, and its return today extremely welcome. We’re alone again tonight, but tomorrow cousin Eddie and his wife are coming for a meal.

16 January 2008

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Heavy rain on Friday last week didn’t worry us too much, but Howard was the car park attendant. Well, you can’t win them all.

Dot is off for the day on an Exclusions Board, hearing an appeal by the parents of a boy who has been excluded from high school. She spent most of yesterday reading the related papers, which led to the cancellation of our normal Tuesday evening meal – that and the many apologies for absence. In the end we couldn’t reach H, who turned up, and so we did her a baked potato before Dot returned to her study.

Earlier in the day we had lunch at Park Farm before calling in to see A Ethel, who had been rumoured to be very ill. In fact she was in bed but in good spirits and quite lively, except that she couldn’t move. Her leg is very bad – probably fluid on it – and something will need to be done soon. Nevertheless we had a good chat, and left when Rodney and Angela arrived to move some of her furniture – it has to be thinned out on doctor’s orders, so that she can use a walking frame.

Afterwards we went to Waitrose, then I dropped Dot off in the city to get some boots repaired. A wet day in general: happily today is quite bright. I went to see the nurse late in the afternoon. Everything Ok, though my blood pressure is still higher than she would like. I said I didn’t want to take blood pressure tablets unless it was absolutely necessary, as I have an aversion to going on something you can’t come off. She seemed to understand this.

So it was a quiet evening. I finished a mainly graphic novel that I got for Christmas – Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Fascinating stuff, and beautifully drawn.

BTW, I managed to lose another chess game on Monday. Yet again I got a really good position – this time against someone graded higher than me – and made a knight sacrifice which he said afterwards “should have won”. But I followed it up inaccurately, and left my king too exposed. When he just managed to get to the time control, I had to resign.

Nearly as bad as Norwich City, who went out of the FA Cup against a poor division two side (Bury) after scraping a replay at home and having to travel north. Still, Spurs are through, beating Reading 1-0 despite the absence through illness of Berbatov. They are starting to look quite reasonable in defence, but will have to be more than that in the next round at Old Trafford.

14 January 2008

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End of an error, as Keith Skipper would say. My page in the EDP is occupied by someone else, and they haven’t even included an explanatory line as promised. So having ignored my retirement, it seems they’re now going to ignore my 11 years of writing a page for them. I shall not be waiting for my obituary with bated breath. Tried to ring the deputy editor, but he’s not there. Nor am I.

Meanwhile life goes on. Life for three days last week was Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk from New Mexico, who visited Norwich to give a two-day course on contemplative Christianity, for which 150 people from all over the country converged on St Luke’s Centre. The event was “put on” by St Augustine’s, the sister church, which has very limited space, so we used the excellent facilities at St Luke’s.

Dot and I were closely involved, because Dot was in charge of all the volunteers. She is pictured in the upstairs kitchen with Howard, hard at work. Providing enough seating, eating, drinking and other facilities for that many people was quite a challenge, especially as some tables and chairs had to be transported in from St Augustine’s Hall. We borrowed a van from Besom. It’s garaged on the Larkman estate in a garage that can only be accessed through a vicarage. So we had to meet someone there, leave our car in the garage (the Larkman estate is not the safest place in Norwich) and drive to St A, where we picked up the furniture, with help from three or four others. We then drove to St Luke’s, unloaded, repeated for extra chairs, and then returned the van to the Larkman and retrieved our car. I quite enjoyed driving the van, but not carrying the furniture, though I think I avoided damaging my back.

That was on Thursday. The whole process had to be repeated on the Saturday, of course, when we had help from Ed and David. In between we did more physical work that we had done for years, setting up the furniture, laying the tables, washing up, carrying crates of crockery, assisting with cooking. Fortunately we had an amazing cook, Suzanne, who produced delicious soup, including a mushroom soup that I actually loved (previously I never liked mushroom soup at all). The team of volunteers worked really well together and formed close friendships. Dot was extremely efficient, of course, and amazingly calm.

On the Thursday, in a state of near exhaustion, we had attended a Eucharist at the Julian shrine led by Richard Rohr. This was extremely moving – there were fewer than a couple of dozen of us. RR had always been an admirer of Julian, and it was clearly a big experience for him. In the evening (after I’d cooked chilli con carne for four, including the stupendous cook – aargh) we went to an RR talk at the Cathedral, which had an audience of about 500. Inspiring stuff, too. It was the only time during the three days we heard him give a complete talk.

The two days ended with a Eucharist which wasn’t on the original programme, which was a bit hair-raising as Dot and I were requisitioned to play music with Liz and Ruth. Did one of my songs, which may be on the official CD – or it may not. The Eucharist was celebrated Iona-style, with a long table down the middle, and each person serving the bread and wine to the person opposite, who then returns the favour. The guy opposite me was a young man from Northern Ireland who has one of those faces that seem almost serenely happy, in a totally good way.

Just as we were coming up to lunch on the first day, Suzanne’s son was rushed into hospital and she received a rather anguished phone call from her mother which resulted in my driving her to hospital and leaving the assistants to serve the soup. If it had happened an hour earlier it would have been extremely difficult, but it worked OK. Her son had to have an infected foot drained, but he was well enough for her to return at the end of the afternoon to prepare for the following day.

After returning the van to the Larkman on Saturday, Dot and I went out for a meal. Prezzo’s was full so we essayed the Nelson, which turned out to be surprisingly good, despite a fair proportion of lads and ladettes in attendance. I had a good steak and Dot had an excellent fish dish, both washed down with a little too much wine. But we made it home. The last four nights, I have slept straight through.

Yesterday was a bit slower, but we managed to get to church, which is just as well, as I was leading the prayers. Rest of the day we took it pretty easy and didn’t move any furniture at all. I did cook a roast dinner, though.

The weather throughout wasn’t too bad. Happily the day of heavy rain was Friday, when we weren’t moving chairs and tables. Today it’s windy, and there have been floods in other parts of the country, with worse forecast.

7 January 2008

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Amy gets enthusiastic in Wollaton Hall deer park. Today is wild and stormy, and NASA and the Space and Science Research Center in Florida are saying that their research into sun spot changes indicates that we are in for a quarter-century cold period not unlike the Little Ice Age at the end of the eighteenth century. We shall see.

Thought I’d share with you a letter from the Sunday Telegraph:

Congratulations to the scientists who have developed technology that enables mobile phones to be used under water. Perhaps they could now invent technology that enables mobile phones to be used in north Norfolk.

Amy appears to be having a similar problem, but in her case it may be the type of mobile phone (the “Princess”) that’s the key.

6 January 2008

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Not feeling too good: rather achey and stuffed up. Didn’t go to church this morning, although maybe I should have – the weather looked very good from inside, and I like Epiphany.

Yesterday I wasn’t feeling wonderful either, though I had to get my act together, as my cousin-once-removed Beverley eventually got here at lunch time, accompanied by her delightful daughter Palmira (14) and her sister’s ex-husband Neville, who lives in Bexleyheath and had provided transport. We had a meal (see picture) accompanied by my brother and sister-in-law (P & J) and there was much discussion about various relatives. I brought out my family tree and printed out a fresh version for Palmira, then got information from Bev on some of her relatives – though I was surprised how little she knew about the generation above her, especially her aunt Anne. This was perhaps because Bev’s father Howard – Leonard’s eldest – had pretty much constructed an entire family tree on his own, having been married “at least” four times. This did come as a bit of a surprise to me, as no other Lenton I’ve come across has been married more than twice. For the record, his wives’ names in order were Norma, Coral (Bev’s mother), Doris and Sandra. Bev is married to a Portuguese man, Tony, and has three children: Palmira and two much older boys, Leonard and Howard. I will eventually get round to inserting these on the family tree on Genes Reunited.

Anyway, everyone left at the end of the afternoon, with Neville, Bev and Palmira heading for Thurton to visit another cousin of hers – Anton Kruger, who I believe is an optician. As they left not too long after the football crowds started emerging, I suspect it may have taken a little longer than usual.

The previous night Dot and had a superb evening with Heather & Sam, getting a taxi home so that we didn’t have to worry about drinking too much. However, despite its being a terrific evening, a little worrying wouldn’t have gone amiss, as I had another very bad night, with my stomach refusing to accept gravity or stillness of any kind. Heather has inspired both Dot and myself to try to produce a book or two.

4 January 2008

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It’s a new year, and here is Oliver putting on a show, despite his broken arm, on New Year’s Eve. Shark meets squid, with the inevitable result. Convivial evening which left me entering 2008 with the usual otherworldly feeling. Oliver was most put out that we had had a party without him: the poppers all over the floor were a bit of a giveaway, together with people crawling into the kitchen about 10am. Or later, in some cases.

In the afternoon we visited Wollaton Hall, a 16th century Tudor building set in a deer park. The weather was misty but not too cold. It would be more accurate to say we visited the park, but the building made a lot of itself, and we did circumnavigate it. Lots of people wandering around, and quite a few deer too. Oliver got a close-up when a small group crossed the path in front of him (he was way ahead of the bunch with Daddy).

On the way back D & J took us past the Hemlock Stone, an impressive outcrop on Stapleford Hill seemingly unrelated to its surroundings. Many myths and legends about its name, but I like the Danish one: apparently many Danes settled in the Nottinghamshire area in the 9th century, and the old Danish word hemmelig means a cover or overhanging.

David and Vicky and family left late on New Year’s Day , and the rest of us were planning to go for a walk on January 2, as well as drop in at Ambience Art and then get some food from M & S. But before we started out Julia got a call to say her eye operation could be scheduled that day, and we persuaded her to go for it. So we missed out on the walk and Dave dropped us at Ambience Art while he took Julia to the hospital. Amazing place (AA, not the hospital). Some wonderful art work, clothes, jewellery and other things, plus a pleasant cafe, which we patronised when Dave returned. Dot and I bought a necklace and ear-rings (she’ll probably wear them more than I will) and a tall wooden vase, with some artificial flowers. Impressive stuff. M & S was quite good too.

We had a good journey home, and Julia’s operation went well, although she was last in and had a painful injection at the end. Snow came to Nottinghamshire the following day, but omitted Norfolk. The M & S food was intended to feed a visitor from South Africa – my cousin once removed, Beverley (Howard’s daughter), who was scheduled to arrive the next day – or so I thought. However, I contacted her halfway through yesterday after a couple of visits to the station and discovered she was at her brother-in-law’s at Bexleyheath. She is now due to come here on Saturday, with her daughter and brother-in-law, and I have added to the food in the fridge.

Tonight we are going to Heather and Sam’s for a meal, and we are being picked up at 6.30pm. This is so that we can both have a drink and get a taxi back. I have a feeling there was something else…

Oh, yes. My eleven years and three months as an EDP columnist have come to an end. I had a phone call from the deputy editor this morning when I was in the bath, and he said they were “making some changes”. This did not come as a big surprise, since I had suggested to the editor that I should be paid a little more than the derisory amount I have been paid the last five years. I have written a “farewell” page, but it may not go in. Either way, it will go on my website (back2sq1.co.uk). I have tried to include all the characters I made up over the years, but probably forgot some.

I now feel a strange mixture of disappointment and relief, as Quentin Tarantino might say. It will be odd not having an outlet for my outrageous opinions and esoteric humour, but maybe I will get down to writing something more substantial. Dot has taken it badly…