From quite sunny, we progress to extremely sunny, and hot with it. Reminds me of our two weeks in Canada earlier this year. Coincidentally we had dinner last night with two of our Canadian friends – Karol and Pete Walpole – at the new, expanded home of Anne and Philip Robinson, who are just home from another holiday, this time in Crete.
Now Dot has left me: she should be arriving at Stansted airport about now en route to Eindhoven and eventually Hilversum in Holland, where she and Barbara will deliver a couple of P4C workshops tomorrow. I may be wrong, but I think this will be the first time Dot and I have been in separate countries since we were married. The last couple of days have been taken up largely with making sure that Dot knows what she’s taking and is taking it. Hope that worked out all right. Meanwhile, I am thinking about doing my tax return. Eventually, I may even do it.
The other item at the top of my to-do list is the forthcoming Paston poetry book, provisionally named Another Country. We’re aiming at 30 pages of A5, with some art – assuming we can persuade the artists to produce something. If not, it will be with photographs. At the moment e-mails are flying backwards and forwards in an attempt to decide who will pay what towards production costs, and who will receive any profits. Using the word “profits” very loosely. I am going to be putting most of it together. I also need to write a couple of poems, the introduction and some notes.
Our Humax, which has been acting very strangely – recording things it wasn’t asked to, not recording what it should, labelling recordings wrongly and duplicating this that and the other – has suddenly gone very quiet after it seized up and I rebooted it. Suddenly all the recorded programmes disappeared, and it seems to be recording things correctly again. Can this last? I hope so, because I’ve cancelled Ryan (Mr Hometech Solutions) who was going to come and have a look at it. In other news on the technology front, Dropbox seems to have nearly finished uploading my picture files. It has started forecasting the end of the operation in hours instead of days – currently 41 hours.
Amid all the Euro-preparations, Dot and I dropped in at Ethika on Timberhill on Tuesday to view Annette’s new fashion collaboration. Looks good. Teri was also there. Dot bought a bag and a hat, the latter from someone other than Annette.
The weathervane designed by J S Cotman on Knapton Church
We’re in the midst of some quite summery weather, with only a slight edge to the wind to suggest that we’re coming into autumn. Yesterday I led a group of four (Rob, Caroline, Kit, Dot Cobley) on the walk from Pigney’s Wood and up the Green Lane (Paston’s Way) into Knapton. Stayed a while at Knapton Church, trying to work out why Knapton was never mentioned by the Pastons – and failing. Lovely angels in the hammerbeam roof. Very little Pastony to see on the walk, but we did have time to discuss our forthcoming book of poetry, which I have proposed we call Another Country, though we probably won’t. We’ve set ourselves a deadline of a fortnight to gather all the material, which is ambitious but essential.
In the evening it was Peter and Joan’s golden wedding at Park Farm. Happily they were both able to get there, despite looking frail. Even Aunt E made it, delivered by her helper Melissa, and it was a pleasant evening. Spent much of it talking to Angela and Vicki, and even ventured a dance with Dot.
Dot did a church school inspection on Thursday at Brisley, and so didn’t get back in time to accompany me to the private view for Martin Laurance’s exhibition at the Theatre Royal. It was the collection of paintings he did on Orford Ness, for which I think he was sponsored by the National Trust. Rather a bleak setting, but he does bleak rather well, especially with his surprising splashes of unusual colour. Really like his work, but resisted the temptation to buy. Pity he’s moving to Kent. Spoke to Hilary Mellon and Rupert, who’s just been diagnosed with diabetes. Elspeth R was there but pretended not to see me again. Don’t know what’s going on there.
While on the subject of the Theatre Royal, we attended a production of Madness of George III on Monday that was absolutely superb. David Haig played him brilliantly and got a standing ovation. The play itself was compelling, mixing tragedy and humour intelligently.
In other news, I’ve just finished my sermon for tomorrow and have booked to see Adam Cohen at the UEA in November. I have also finished Sam’s novel – prompted by a plea for feedback – and responded. Apparently I was the first of his readers to do so.
Still keeping busy in mildish, dryish weather, but there is an autumnal feel to the air. Spent Friday and Saturday assisting Dot with organising the James Finley speaker’s event at St Luke’s – ie keeping 150 people happy and comfortable, with hot drinks and biscuits available, plus rearranging furniture, buying many litres of milk and pounds of biscuits and trying to work out what’s going on. It all went well: JF peaked in the first session, which was a brilliantly poetic, broad-brush look at mysticism. But his subsequent stuff was also good, and there was a very nice feel to it all. The volunteers got on well as usual.
In contrast, there were very few people at Communion yesterday, and I also found myself doing a solo on guitar when Dot was grabbed to deliver (that can’t be the right word) the Cup. Oh, I think it’s administer. I could go back and change it, but I’m on a roll. In the afternoon we went to the cemetery at North Walsham, timing our arrival precisely to coincide with the only shower of the day, which stopped as we drove off. Had a cup of tea with Jessie, who looked well. In the evening we picked up JF (remember him?) from St Julian’s and took him to Nicholas’s, where we all had dinner: lamb foll0wed by blackberry and apple pie, all expertly cooked by NV. Is there no end to his talents? JF is a pleasant and gentle grandfather who lives in Santa Monica, but still thinks a shirt and trousers (sorry, pants) is the right choice for a Norfolk September evening. Worth thinking about.
My Twitter account got hacked last night, so I have been fielding emails and tweets from people telling me so: this will no doubt continue, although I changed the password first thing this morning and switched it on Facebook too, just in case. David helped with putting all my photos in Dropbox, a process which I have been informed by Dropbox will take 23 days. I feel they may be exaggerating. I hope they are.
Took a brief step back into the chess world on Monday, when we had a club night featuring rapid games in a kind of mini-tournament, played in the bar. I did well in the first two games, beating Steve Crane and a new guy who gave me a piece early on, but after a bye I came back with two losses – one on time in a winning position against Steve Moore and the other against my bête noir, Terry Glover, where I just miscalculated. That meant I missed out on the semi-finals, but I did have a couple of friendlies against strong players – Jeff Dawson and Jim McAvoy – both of which I won. So +4-2: pretty good for me. Apologies to any readers who don’t play chess.
On the same day we learnt that C had gone into Hellesdon – no surprise, as she’d been deteriorating alarmingly and had become fiercely paranoid – but sad all the same. Dot had been round to see her earlier and had spoken to the social services people who were there to assess her. This has happened to her before, and we expect her to recover enough to come out of hospital in a few months.
Strong wind on Monday, but it’s been quite pleasant since then. On Tuesday I went out to see Lucy, who is in a particularly bad way after her recent rather lengthy hospital visit. She has so many things wrong with her that the consultants can’t pin down the causes. She is still determined to carry on with the Paston Heritage Society, and we had a longish talk about various aspects of the Pastons, in which I am getting more and more interested, but she was clearly very tired and in pain.
Yesterday I spent ages putting words and pictures on to the new Paston website – “ages” because I couldn’t work out how to insert the images to accompany an article. In the end I asked Robin, who created the site, and he sent lengthy instructions. But what it all boiled down to was that although I could do lots of stuff on the site using Safari, it wasn’t showing me the key icons for inserting images. So I switched to Firefox, and they miraculously appeared. It was pretty easy then. I still had several attempts at resizing a picture I’d been sent before I could get it looking sharp enough. They way I did it (in case I forget and look back at this) was to put the picture into iPhoto, export it as a small picture and then upload it on to the site. Seems straightforward, but there are so many other possibilities…
Anyway by 3.45pm I was determined to get out of the house. Dot was due back from Bradwell shortly, but I couldn’t wait, and in fact passed her on the single-carriageway section of the A47 near Burlingham. I pulled in and phoned her, but she decided to carry on when I said I was going to Mautby (home of Margaret, who married John Paston somewhere around 1440 and wrote many of the Paston letters). I don’t think I’d ever been to Mautby, which is off to the right of the road running from Acle to Caister. It’s pretty much on the edge of the Bure marshes and has a nice old church where Margaret was buried. Unfortunately the south aisle, where she was buried, collapsed some time ago; so there is no trace of any memorial. I drove around a bit and walked a little before deciding that Hall Farm was all that was left of Mautby Hall. The current buildings are almost invisible from the road.
So I drove home, stopping briefly at Stokesby, which has a delightful riverside pull-in and pub. Spoke to a woman from North Yorkshire who was sitting on a boat in the evening sun and was envious that we had “all this on our doorstep”. I said we quite liked North Yorkshire.
Today Dot is at a Diocesan House meeting and I have been up to clean mum and dad’s grave: not a very thorough job, but it looks much nicer.
I have amended my previous posts, in which I suggested that my paternal grandfather may have been married before he married my grandmother. It now seems this was a false alarm generated by the site which I use to research my family tree: I sent off for the marriage certificate and was told that while my grandfather did get married at that time, it was not to the woman in question. In which case, I guess, it was probably to my grandmother. I will be having a closer look at what went wrong and will report back! Excitement over.
The weekend went quiet yesterday after a joint service at St Luke’s to mark Nicholas’ ten years as our vicar. Dot and I played in the joint music group, which went well after a jittery start, and I did the prayers. Nice occasion.
Rarely seen in Paston times, a teddy bear is glimpsed on its way to church by balloon.
Another busy few days – particularly the last two. Yesterday Dot and I went down to Caddington together – but in separate cars – to celebrate Oliver’s ninth birthday (which is in fact tomorrow, but hey, let’s not quibble). We arrived in time to eat our packed lunch before going to school with David to pick up Amy. We then brought her back, and Dot and I returned an hour later to pick up the birthday boy. Surprise for both children!
David cooked lamb for the evening meal, and Dot contributed a blackberry and apple crumble from fruit foraged in their garden. Oliver opened our presents, which mainly related to his Hornby train set, and David swiftly inserted the new items (he also bought some track). Made the layout much better, I thought. Oliver and Amy both in good form: first time we’d seen them since Canada.
I then drove home, leaving Dot to stay overnight and enjoy another day there, joined by the Coomes. I had to be in Norfolk to take Lucy’s role in the Blofield Paston Heritage Day, which consisted of giving talks relating to the Paston book and the family history. I had spent quite a lot of time in the last few days researching the Pastons’ Blofield period, with some success. I was thus able to speak with rather more authority than would have been the case a week ago. It still wasn’t a huge amount of authority, but it was good enough, especially as most of the talks centred on the handmade book, which is now three years old.
Lucy did come for a short while, but she was too ill to take any effective part. Caroline and Rob contributed to the central talk (ie the 2nd of 3) by reading poems, and Diane from Oxburgh also read hers. They seemed to go quite well. Naomi and her boyfriend were also there helping for a while, as was Simeon, who is moving into a house two streets away from us. Jonathan was also there, as were his parents. I also met a classmate from the CNS – David Pilch. They crop up everywhere. Nice bloke. The Blofield people generally did a superb job, and loads of people came. I was especially impressed by the teddy bear balloon rides, although these occur very rarely in the Paston Letters.
Skipping back a week to last Saturday, we were at Wymondham, enjoying a barbecue in the sun with the parents of Matt Creber, our former lodger, who is now in Palestine. He was also at the barbecue with his American girlfriend Laurie, who I spent quite a lot of time talking to. She’s a sweetie. Dot and I also talked a lot with Wayne, an astro-physicist who teaches RE and has ideas a lot in common with Dot’s philosophy for children. We gave him a lift home to Thorpe where, coincidentally, I have just discovered that the Pastons had a home in the 16th century (Thorpe Hall). Wayne lives in Bishop’s Close, however, which is another coincidence: Thorpe Hall was more recently owned by the Bishop of Norwich.
Matt’s parents were lovely, as was his sister. None of these ordered two large items for the church amplifier when they meant to order one, but Matt did, which meant I had to pick it up from the church hall, repackage it and send it off. It cost over £13 to send, so it might have been better value for money to flog it on eBay. Or something. While picking it up I also checked a broken window in the hall, which was not as bad as it sounds (double glazing), brushed some cobwebs off the guttering and windows, and swept loads of stones off the hall surround. No, I’m not the churchwarden: Matt is. He’s in Palestine. I may have mentioned that.
That same evening (Thursday) Dot and I went to the Cathedral Hostry to hear a talk on the language of the King James Bible given by Gordon Campbell. This may not sound exciting, but it was brilliant: he’s a really witty speaker and knowledgeable too. Picked up a lot of information, most of which I’ve already forgotten. I wish I had a better memory, but then if I did, who knows what I’d remember…
This was the second evening in a row we’d been to a lecture, which must constitute some kind of record. The previous night we were at Paston Church to hear Richard Hoggett, the Norfolk coastal heritage officer, launch the Paston Reading the Past in our Landscape project. He as also a good speaker, and much of what he had to say was really interesting, though I have to say pre-history is not a great love of mine. He was able to point us to a lot of interesting online material which will relate to the Pastons. There will be a number of events over the next six months.
On Tuesday Dot spent a very wet day (or part of it) at Beeston Hall School, near Sheringham, with Barbara for a P4C session. She came home very positive and bubbly about it. In the evening we had a smallish Tuesday Group. Smallish, but beautifully formed.
At the King's Head, Hoveton, for supper: Fred, Sue, Ivan, Joyce, Marjorie, Pat
Congratulations to the highways authorities, who have timed road works on Carrow Bridge to coincide with the last weekend of the summer holidays, when all those parents and children are buying back-to-school stuff and the city is crammed. I have just taken our hairdresser Linda up to Ber Street so that she can leave her haircutting bag at her partner’s workplace: her own car is in for an MOT test. On the way back I encountered a long queue of lost cars up Rouen Road, which I ruthlessly jumped. Or slipped into, to be more accurate.
Last night I travelled to Lowestoft, accompanied by Dot after a last-minute decision, for the Waveney and Blyth Arts event. I was supposed to arrive at 6.30 for a run-through, but unsurprisingly this never happened, so we were hanging around for 45 minutes. As much of this was spent chatting to Ian Fosten, it wasn’t a hardship. The event featured poets of a rather higher calibre than some that have appeared at the Seagull, though not all of them were much of a judge of how long ten minutes is. I thought my poems (with accompanying photographs projected on screen) went quite well, though I felt some were a little obscure. Most of the poets relied heavily on evocative description without being particularly poetic in a use-of-words way, the one exception being Nina Roffey from Beccles.
Dot had been feeling rather fragile following her colonoscopy. The first night was bad: she was in a lot of pain, and I was worried that we might have to call the hospital. But it eased off eventually – it was almost certainly caused by the gas that they pump into you during the procedure and don’t bother to pump out again. One day this will be regarded as barbaric. The procedure itself was also painful, but I was out of earshot, taking a walk, having been assured that I wouldn’t be needed.
The next day (Thursday) she was very tired and still had occasional quite bad pain, but she summoned up the will to go to Wroxham on the Jazz Cruise organised by Fred and Sue for the ruby wedding celebration. I was pretty worried how she would last, but it turned out all right, with only a couple of alarms. We had a nice carvery meal in the King’s Head before leaving on the cruise at 7.30pm, sailing down past Horning after taking in Wroxham and Salhouse Broads. It was a lovely evening, though of course it turned quite chilly, and we ended up snug in the cabin after starting on deck. Also present, Marjorie and Pat; Joyce and Ivan. Plus, unexpectedly, Dot’s “friend” from the Bluebell in North Walsham, with whole we had a chat. The jazz band was pretty good too.
This morning we had to be up and about early for our haircut, because Linda was dropped off by Michael on his way to work. In an hour or so we will be at Wymondham for a barbecue at Matt’s house – a kind of farewell before he leaves for Palestine. Weather is very good at the moment.
