Dot taking precautions in Yelverton churchyard, following the wedding of Charlotte and Chris last weekend
Here I am back in the study, and the computer is working fine. It did fail again, but this time I was able to access the wireless settings and change the channel successfully. I feel as if someone ought to change my channel, though I’m actually feeling a good bit better. Went to the hospital today to see a nurse (as you do), and after a chat we agreed I was probably OK really, at least as far as the urology department was concerned. Good to have a lengthy discussion with her.
Afterwards Dot and I went to Waitrose to buy some food for tomorrow and ran into Heather Vesey, who is a nice person to run into. Following that we visited my aunt Kathleen, who is back at her flat after having a broken hip fixed. She’s surprisingly sprightly, though of course there’s plenty of stuff she can’t do yet. Also today completed a writing task for Howard, which may be the first of several. Had a bit of a struggle getting to grips with the health service structure involved, but it came out all right in the end.
Meanwhile, Alan picked up the old computer, and Rupert called for his picture. Dot spent a couple of days at a South Norfolk school advising on the selection of a new head teacher. I played a good game of chess on Monday night against a fellow-club member but just failed to hold it together at the end. Oh yes, and I’ve booked a cottage at Aldeburgh for three nights over the weekend of the poetry festival. Hope the weather is better than is predicted for the coming weekend (and tomorrow), which is wet, very wet, windy and very windy. Joy. Still, it was very pleasant today: I think they call it a window.
Charlotte and Chris with her parents plus bridesmaids Louise and Sophie, and Sophie's husband Richard
After the internet connection worked fine all weekend, with everything relocated to the kitchen table, I moved the computer back into the study this morning, and it immediately stopped working again. I am now in a secure unit – no, wait, I’m back in the kitchen again, and it’s working again. You may think this is a location problem, but I don’t think it is. I managed to reset the wireless channel, and I am more confident now that it will continue to work. No thanks to BT, though, who made me do the pointless resetting in the first place. As a safety precaution I am staying in the kitchen for a while.
The accountant duly came on Friday morning, and immediately after he left we went for lunch with the Higbees at Newton Flotman. Stopped to buy flowers on the way, which was clearly the wrong thing to do because it triggered a huge downpour, which continued all the way to Newton Flotman and into the afternoon. Very nice lunch and subsequent conversation, although I was feeling well below par, as I have been all weekend. I suspect some kind of food poisoning dating back into midweek, but I don’t know where it came from. Occasional diarrhoea, aches and pains in peculiar places, slight headache and so on. All the things you like to read about. But it didn’t prevent us fulfilling our multiplicity of engagements over a very, very wet weekend.
The most prominent of these engagements was Charlotte Robinson’s wedding to Chris Wickham on Saturday. It was the least wet of three wet days, in that there were occasional dry periods, which enabled the photographer to function outside for a while. Quite chilly, though. The wedding service was at Yelverton Church – very familiar ground, yards from our home for 12 years in Church Road. Nice to be back: we met the mother of the bride with the bridesmaids at the gate, all looking stunning. Uplifting service, and a pleasant reception afterwards at King’s Church in Norwich, where the food and everything was provided to an extremely professional level by church members. Lovely meal, and I was able to hear all the speeches before I had to make a rapid exit as one aspect of my below-parness asserted itself. Pity, I would have liked to chat with people, but they you are. What can you do? I’d recovered enough to meet Dot as she walked home about an hour later.
Felt pretty rough and had a less than perfect night, but was well enough to go to church on Sunday morning, which on this occasion was followed by a meal at Vicky and Jared’s. I was a bit worried about this for obvious reasons, but in fact my condition gradually improved and I was able to enjoy more splendid food, including a quince crumble, which you don’t come across every day of the week. Plus some really good conversation with our hosts and with Howard and Anna, David and Bridget and Helen and Rob, who brought delightful little Florence (2). Amy (3) showed prowess at jigsaws and elsewhere and took a motherly interest in Florence.
Got home (after transporting Howard and Anna) just after 5pm and surprisingly felt well enough to drive to Lowestoft with Dot to read some poetry as part of a New Words, Fresh Voices evening hosted by Ian Fosten, an old friend who used to be a governor at Tuckswood School when Dot was deputy there, and later lived on Lindisfarne as the URC minister. He is now remarried and owns the Seagull Theatre. Lovely setting in a very basic way and an unusual evening, opened by a three-strong band of youngsters who could go far. Called Hilltop Mile: remember, you read it here first. Chatted to one of them – a very likeable lad. The rest of the performers were much older: the poets were mainly women of a certain age, plus me and another man of similar age. The cast was completed by an acoustic guitarist who was good in a very straightforward sort of way. To be honest, some of the poetry wasn’t very good, but it all had redeeming features. I read two poems in the first half and three in the second. They seemed to go down well, but everybody was being nice to each other. The audience was about 20-25, many of them quite young.
We got home about 10.40pm, and it was still raining. Today is different only in that the rain is closer to a drizzle. The sky is still grey, and the lights are on. Margaret Malt has just called for one of her pictures, which I brought from Oxburgh Hall for her, and I am expecting Alan Higbee later, to pick up my old computer. I think I’ll have some lunch.
Fraught couple of days after a good start to the week, when I won a pleasing game of chess against Greg to make it quite a reasonable beginning to the season. On Tuesday morning, however, my computer’s internet connection reduced to a crawl, making it impossible to use. This made me surprisingly depressed – partly because I was already very tired after the hectic weekend – and I found it difficult to handle. When I contacted BT, the woman I spoke to (after half an hour’s wait) said there was a nationwide network problem, which there patently wasn’t, and proceeded to try out various things like resetting the router, none of which was the slightest use.
I was then told to wait for 24 hours (why?) so I left it till this morning, then had a similarly fruitless conversation with another woman – or possibly the same one – trying to persuade her to put me on to someone who knew about Macs. After a long time, this happened, but although he made more sense, we didn’t really make any progress. In the end he left me with instructions on how to change the wireless channel after I found the ethernet connection. After much searching I did find the cable, but connecting it didn’t seem to make much difference, and when I tried to change the wireless channel, I kept getting shunted back to the page I’d just come from, and the Wireless option never appeared. Despairing, I moved the computer and the hub as near as I could get them to the phone in preparation for ringing BT again. When I set up, I found that I had a connection, and now (10.50pm on Thursday), I still have it. I am still nervous, however, because I don’t know why I have it. A totally frustrating experience that has left me exhausted.
Warm weather for the first three days of the week has now turned to something truly autumnal: damp and much cooler, just in time for us to have our hair cut, which happened today. Tomorrow the accountant comes and we’re out for lunch afterwards. Saturday is Charlotte’s wedding. Hope it’s a bit more summery then – and that my computer connection continues to work.
The leaders in the Tour of Britain sweep into Riverside Road
Feeling rather battered. No, Dot hasn’t taken to beating me up: I’ve just spent three days doing largely physical work, which is pretty unusual, and my body is feeling the effects. It’s 5pm, and I already feel ready for bed. Not that I shall go to bed, of course. That would be ridiculous. Anyway, the physical work is over for a while.
It started on Thursday, when I was called on to go to Oxburgh Hall, to help take the Paston exhibition down. Lucy was so ill that she had to go to bed, and Jo Berry was concerned that she and her husband would have to do it all on their own. I, meanwhile, had been intending to help Dot set up St Luke’s for the visit of John Bell, from Iona, who was coming down for a two-day event. I also wanted to see the Tour of Britain sweep through Norwich, so it seemed impossible to fit everything in, as the artists who might have helped at Oxburgh (Annette, Mike, Martin) were down in Brighton for an exhibition there. In the end, Dot said she could manage without me in the morning, and I drove to Oxburgh (about an hour away), arriving about 10.30am. I took all the pictures down and cleared the screens before anyone else arrived, and we managed to get everything done by noon, when Teri arrived with help to take away her heavy stained glass piece.
After a cup of tea I made the journey home, arriving just after 1pm, in time for a quick lunch before walking with Dot down to Riverside Road to take up position for the ToB cyclists to arrive. We were there for about half an hour with nothing much happening, but then a squadron of motor cycles swept through, clearing vehicles out of the way ruthlessly, and the first two cyclists arrived rather suddenly. I just had time to snatch a picture before they were away. It was another five minutes before the peloton came through and I got some more pictures. They were followed by all the team cars, having a great time screeching around the Foundry Bridge corner.Then they were gone, and things returned to normal. Amazing organisation really. There was a King of the Mountains section on Mousehold, which must have been more King of the Molehill, I should imagine. The two leaders seemed far out of reach of the others, but by the time they reached Yarmouth they had been caught, and the stage was won by a sprinter.
In the afternoon, Dot and I returned to St Luke’s to finish setting up, then went to Morrisons to get extra provisions. The next day these proved woefully insufficient, and I went first to Lidls and then to Spar to supplement what we had. Even that was not enough: more milk was obtained by Anna later in the day: we used about 35 pints of milk each day for the 140 people attending the event. And that was just in tea and coffee. No food was supplied.
Anyway, back to Thursday evening. Dot and I got to the cathedral early to distribute leaflets, which proved quite wearing on the back, as there were about 450 chairs to cover, and four leaflets per chair. The session led by John Bell (Different Voices, Same Song – exploring the nature of harmony in community, using music as a metaphor) was brilliant. Despite bring very tired, I was completely captivated and surprised how soon it ended: it was in fact about 90 minutes.
He was also superb in a different way at St Luke’s. Very easy to listen to: he has a relaxed style and a Scottish accent, with a great sense of humour. He spoke mainly using stories, which as one or two people remarked was rather like the parabolic method of Jesus. Quite radical, but compelling in what he said because his aim was not to provide convincing arguments, but to express a point of view which we might be interested in. As a result, we were. His sane comments about caring for the earth, equality for everyone, generosity and concern for exploitation of people in other parts of the world were mixed with amusing stories about the nature of Christianity and the need to avoid confrontation over issues of theology and who is right. A very likeable man, without any pretensions, and also a gifted musician who could get everyone singing using only his voice (and an occasional burst on piano). On a very superficial level reminded me a bit of Denis Lawson in Local Hero.
Being helpers proved quite demanding, but we managed to hear a lot of what he said, and he was the sort of man you wished everyone could hear. Dot and I had to pay another visit to Morrisons for provisions on the Friday evening, and we followed this by having a meal at Prezzo’s, since that involved little effort. The clearing up on the Saturday was particularly tiring, as many of the helpers had to leave early and there was a lot of furniture moving to accomplish. Did I mention Dot was in charge of all this? She got a public thank-you and two bottles of rather pleasant red wine, one of which we sampled today.
Birthday boy Oliver, 8
Of course the previous Saturday was even more significant, as it was Oliver’s eighth birthday. What a star! Dot and I drove down in the morning and met David, Oliver and Amy at the Harvester on the A5 – a favourite eating place of the children. They didn’t know we were coming and were pleased to see our car in the car park. Nice moment. Pleasant meal, and then back to the house for the afternoon, until Vicky arrived to pick them up about 5pm. We stayed for a few hours for tea with David , and then drove home. It was good to see Oliver on his birthday. He got an iPod Touch from his Dad and a variety of things from us. He is growing up fast, as children do.
A couple of other things last week: I performed badly in our pre-season chess tournament, scoring only 2/6 in a rapid-play event, and then visited Kathleen on Tuesday at Dereham Hospital, where she was sent for rehabilitation. She is doing very well. I managed to get in touch with her stepdaughter after failing at first on the number she’d given me. I used the mobile number Paul obtained from Kathleen later in the week. I now have her e-mail address. Hope I’ve got that right.
Among the people at the John Bell event were Claire, nee Osborne, daughter of Andy and niece of Lily from Surrey Chapel days; Di Barrell and her husband, parents of former EDP trainee Nicky and friends of Marion WIlliams; and Bridget Fosten, second wife of Ian Fosten, who we knew as governor of Tuckswood and from visiting him in Lindisfarne many, many years ago.
Loose ends: I did visit Kathleen, and she proved surprisingly perky, chatting for well over an hour. I did deliver part of a poetry and art workshop at Oxburgh Hall on a lovely sunny day, and it went very well – the only problem being that I could not see the screen of Dot’s laptop in the marquee. It was too bright. After some while I gave up and took the laptop into the armoury, where I completed typing the workshoppers’ poems before returning to the marquee to print them out. Dot arrived late morning and joined in, and we had five others, including Paston artist Kit Price-Moss. All produced good poems, plus some lively artwork with the assistance of Annette. All middle-aged women, interestingly. The day before I had helped to set up the Paston exhibition, again in very nice weather.
After Communion on Sunday we had lunch at home and then set off for Scarborough by the direct route. Quite a straightforward journey, except that we were stopped by the police on the A17 as part of a random sample for a little lecture on road safety. This centred, needless to say, on speed, and might have been suitable for a class of teenagers thinking about driving. The lecture was given by a female member of the local safety partnership, and I would have loved to give her a few arguments, but I didn’t want to delay our journey in order to do so, so I satisfied myself by suggesting the “Fatal Four” were lion, elephant, rhinoceros and hippo when she was angling for speed (hah!), seat belts, drink and mobile phones. It did inspire me to write a piece on the dangers of driving slowly, which will soon appear on my website.
We arrived safely at Scarborough around the estimated time – 6pm – and enjoyed an evening meal with Dave and Julia. We then spent three days with them without going anywhere near Scarborough town or beach. The weather was good on the Monday, so we drove to Goathland, home of the TV series Heartbeat, where we parked and walked to Grosmont, just under four miles away along the line of an old railway track. Mostly downhill, with a brisk wind behind, and very pleasant. Had a snack in Grosmont and then caught a North Moors Railway train back. In the evening we went to the Stephen Joseph theatre and saw a remarkable Alan Ayckbourn play based, surprisingly, on a time travel device. It worked very well, although Julia really didn’t like it at half-time. Most enjoyable and very clever, I thought. Communicating Doors starred Liza Goddard and Laura Doddington.
Helmsley Castle
Next day was supposed to be rainy, so we headed for Nunnington Hall. In fact it didn’t rain at all and was less windy and therefore even nicer than the day before. Nevertheless we enjoyed the hall and a brief trip into Helmsley afterwards. In the evening we had a very good meal at Tuscany Too, a restaurant half a mile down the road from the Evetts’ apartment. So good in fact that the richness of the food meant I had trouble sleeping that night.
Cliffs near Flamborough Head
On Wednesday we travelled in two cars down to Flamborough Head, so that we could continue on to Norwich afterwards. An impressive spot with a smattering of twitchers, but we walked along the cliffs, which were dramatic: could have stayed much longer. As it was we climbed the lighthouse, then had lunch (fish and chips for Dot and me) and set off for home about 3pm, following Dave and Julia until they turned off for Hornsea and Tracy Savage. We continued into Hull (probably a mistake) but emerged unscathed ono to the A63 and headed for the A1, where we stopped for refreshments at Blyth (nice one) before heading for Peterborough and home along the A47. No real traffic problems, and we got home just before 8pm. This was a longer route, but more relaxing to drive. The A17 and A15 are all right if you don’t mind travelling in a 45mph convoy all the time.
Yesterday I went to the dentist to check that his treatment of my sensitive teeth had worked – and it had, so that didn’t take long. Bought some presents for Oliver and an iPod for his Dad to give him, then ran into Martin Laurance. Dot was taking a head out to lunch, so I spent the rest of the day writing Oliver’s latest Little story – Little and the steps too far. Today I finished it off (with pictures) and am now catching up with various other things, like paying bills, writing e-mails and choosing hymns.
I forgot to mention that last Thursday we went for a meal with Ruth and Steve. Finding their home in Hethersett was a bit of a challenge, despite stopping and phoning them from the end of their drive. Ruth’s directions persuaded me that it wasn’t their house, but eventually Steve came out and guided us in. Very pleasant evening.
Three in a bed, and the little one hid up. Dot and grandchildren in the West Runton caravan.
As waste disposal lorries queue up in the street outside, the Oxburgh Hall exhibition approaches rapidly. Rupert Mallin has just appeared with his print, which I will transport to the Hall tomorrow, together with Martin Laurance’s pictures, which he delivered last night. Rupert is happy with his new teaching schedule at City College, but most full-time employees have to reapply for their jobs. This has always seemed an iniquitous device. If your job is no longer there, you are redundant and entitled to compensation; if your job is there, then there should be no legal way to remove you from it unless you’re dishonest or incompetent. Changing the job description slightly is in reality ending one job (redundancy) and introducing a new one.
Happily I am unlikely ever again to be in such a position, though I suppose Dot could change my job description. Would I have to reapply? The suspense is killing me. Have just heard my aunt Kathleen is in hospital with a broken hip after a fall, so will probably pay her a visit this afternoon. That will teach her.
Yesterday was a lovely warm day. Dot went merrily and with memory lapse to Swaffham with her P4C hat on, leaving her colleague waiting for her at the Park and Ride in Norwich. Numerous phone calls later (neither Barbara nor I knew which school they were going to, and Dot had her mobile phone off) the pair were reunited just in time. I have been preparing my poetry workshop for Oxburgh, but in the afternoon delivered a chess game to Mike Read (my rather exciting loss on Monday to Jon Burrows), walking to Knowsley Road by way of Mousehold Heath. Met up successfully with Dot at Phil and Joy’s to deliver Joy’s birthday present and have a long discussion on miracles. At least, that’s what happened.
On Sunday I led the service and preached, with Dot doing the prayers. Everyone else who does that kind of thing was away, either at Greenbelt or elsewhere, so there wasn’t much choice. Afterwards Vicky M said she had been completely healed of a back problem after we’d prayed for her on the Tuesday last week. This Tuesday we had a large gathering for the meal (no connection between last two statements) when we’d been expecting very few. Dot’s friend Carrie came, which was nice. Had a good discussion about prayer, miracles and what we should or could be doing.
Went to see June W earlier in the day. Her problems are still proving recalcitrant, but she was cheerful, and we had a good time with her. Her house and garden are so beautifully organised, sand she’s brave enough to use bright colours on wall and furniture. Her son William is a brilliant artist in leather – produces wonderful things.
Somewhere in the middle of all that (Saturday, actually) we had our hair cut. Thought I’d better mention that.
