One of my former homes – 191 Beanfield Avenue, Coventry (early 1950s)
We’re on the brink. Tomorrow is our major, much-anticipated Reading the Pastons event at Dragon Hall, organised largely by me and therefore the cause of much disquiet in my brain over many weeks. Who will turn up? Too few? Too many? The announcement I thought I had put in the event section of the EDP wasn’t there this morning, but according to Sarah at Dragon Hall there have been quite a few inquiries. So we’ll see.
Today I went out to Paston to collect various items for the event, such as the content of the bookstall, some costumes and some exhibition boards. Lucy was in a pretty bad state and will probably not come tomorrow. Rob also brought some stuff from the Barn and we both found our way to DragonHall by about 4pm. Also there: Anna and Elizabeth, two of our three speakers, who brought their Powerpoint presentations to see if they worked. They didn’t at first, but I think Sarah has it under control. (Elizabeth also brought Karen’s.)
After that had been sorted, I helped Sarah put out the tables and chairs, having mistakenly allowed Rob to go, thinking the heavy moving would take place tomorrow morning. Ah well. Home by 6pm, and Dot did me steak and chips. She is very much better, although still suffering bouts of coughing.
I eventually remembered to get my blood test results, and I have now reached almost exactly five years since my operation without showing any signs of a relapse. My PSA is still less than 0.1. Haven’t been feeling 100%, but that’s brilliant news. Rang up Warwick Hospital today, and Andrew seems to be much improved. Joy M, however, has been in a lot of pain, but still manages to produce some good poetry, and we’re continuing our tanka series.
Joy L has been at Ditchingham all week, in retreat while Phil spends some time in Southampton. I took her there on Monday, and we spent some time looking for Lavinia House, but got there in the end. I stayed for a cup of tea with her and the woman in charge of the guest house, Barbara.
Because of Dot’s illness we had no Tuesday Group this week. Yesterday I had lunch (chicken soup, bread and cheese) with Rob and Penny at North Walsham to discuss the sections we’re putting together for the Paston DVD, and then Caroline and Kay arrived for a Chronicle rehearsal. Made a few slight changes, but it went pretty well. We’re performing it twice tomorrow.
A rare picture of our new wall (usually inaccessible or hidden behind Wildlife vehicles)
Ok, that’s far too long a gap – yet again. In self-justification, I was going to do it at the weekend, but someone decided late on Saturday afternoon that they weren’t going to be able to do a sermon the next morning, so I had to write one. As part of my sermon was about how self-justification is unnecessary and not very appealing, you can ignore that last bit. Oh dear: too late.
Dot has been ill too. She gets really bad colds that don’t normally last all that long but are extremely unpleasant for her while they last. They’re also quite frightening, especially when she can’t stop coughing and can’t breathe. She’s been in bed for a couple of days, but is now improving (though still in bed at the moment).
Last night of course she was unable to go to the final concert of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival at St Andrew’s Hall – a performance of Verdi’s Requiem by the London Philharmonic and the Festival Chorus. I took Judy instead, and she was most appreciative. Rightly so, because it was superb. This is really not my sort of music, but it was top quality. I was particularly impressed by the soprano. At the end one of the cellists mouthed to one of her colleagues that it had been a good performance. She was right.
We saw the Cracknells in passing. Wouldn’t have thought it was their sort of thing either, but their eclecticism shouldn’t surprise me any more.
The weather yesterday and today is really summery. It wasn’t too bad on Saturday, but there was a cool wind while Colin and his son were rebuilding part of our wall at the back and erecting a new trellis. I have to say it looked really good, despite Dot’s not being able to supervise.
Dot’s car is ill too. It sprung a leak in the power steering fluid reservoir, which had to be replaced, but it will apparently take three weeks to do so; so we are a one-car family. I have looked carefully at our diaries, and I think we shall be able to cope. Perhaps we only need one car… Dot doesn’t think so.
It went into the garage last Monday, and the same evening I played my last game of chess this season, beating Andy Pandian (Oh yes) to reach 6/8 in my tournament. I still don’t know if this will be enough to win it. I suspect not. But as it may be my last game for a while, and it features a very nice finish, here it is (well, the finish, anyway):
At this point I envisaged a nice sacrificial finish, but I had to persuade him to allow it, so I played 40 Qd6. Exchanging queens would give me an easily superior position, so as I expected, he played 40…Qc3, whereupon I played 41 f6. This wins whatever he does, but happily he didn’t see the main threat and played 41…axb, and on my 42 Qxf8+ he resigned immediately. He has to take the Queen, when 43 Rd8 is mate. Not difficult, but quite pleasant.
Longish meeting of the Paston Trustees on a very chilly Thursday. Dot dropped me at Rob’s while she took Jessie to the crematorium at Horsham St Faith’s (it was the anniversary of Frank’s death), and Rob gave me a lift to Paston. Much discussion on many issues, which I somehow managed to translate the next day into coherent minutes. My preparations for Dragon Hall seem OK (I had seen Sarah again) and they were fairly impressed by my new flyers. I’m OK at producing publicity, but I’m not sure what to do with it.
Much else going on in the background. A has now been transferred to a smaller ward after he had become very hostile to other patients for no apparent reason, but on the plus side he is now getting visits from church friends who I got in touch with. Phil is in Southampton with Sam, who has just got a new job at St Swithun’s Girls’ School in Winchester, which should suit him down to the ground. Meanwhile I’m taking Joy to Ditchingham this afternoon for a five-day retreat.
Another packed week, starting last Sunday (as weeks do) with an evening meal at the Greens’. The four of us were joined by Anna’s sister, Nicola (Mendikova) and her friend Jane (John) from Trowse. Fantastic evening: good food and wine, plus excellent conversation. Suggested to Howard afterwards that this was pretty close to my idea of heaven on earth: good food, good wine and conversation with four beautiful women.
On Monday I managed to beat Norman Thomas at chess, bringing my score to 5/7, but even if I beat Andy P tomorrow, the tournament result depends on other scores. I’ve decided that I’m going to have a proper break from chess next year.
Tuesday saw Dot and I on the road to Warwick to visit Andrew in hospital. The day started bright but deteriorated sharply later, with quite a bit of rain. Andrew was in a sorry state, possibly the worst I’ve seen him. We were able to talk to the nurse, the doctor and Andrew’s new care worker, Elaine (bubbly), plus his old case worker, Paul, who is pretty tight-lipped. Afterwards Dot and I went to look at Andrew’s prospective new home, Minster Lodge, which is for people with mental health problems. The room earmarked for him is quite nice, with steps to the garden, but the place is a bit of a warren, and I’m not sure how he’ll get on with the 23 other residents. I was however impressed with the manager, Helen.
In between Warwick and Minster Lodge, Dot and I had fish and chips at the Burnt Post on Kempas Highway. Excellent. Bit of nostalgia there: very close to one of my childhood homes in Beanfield Avenue. Of course we would never have darkened the doors of the Burnt Post in those days.
On Wednesday I had a blood test, and in the evening a DCC meeting – on my own, while Dot was at an orchestra rehearsal. On Thursday we installed Infinity, or at least BT did. The engineer was outstanding. He arrived shortly before I had to leave for a session with Sharon, my physiotherapist and was extremely helpful, brushing aside fears that our set-up, featuring a hole in the wall, might present problems. By the time I got home he was about to leave, and everything was working fine and fast.
The next day we travelled down to Mottingham to visit the Hendersons. Maryta’s father was also staying, and he is in good shape mentally for 88, though rather fragile physically. After lunch we walked round the grounds and had a look at the new school Gallery, with its Mervyn Peake exhibition, in the company of the headmaster and his wife!
The following morning we left just after 10am to travel to Caddington – a 1¼-hour trip through the Blackwall tunnel and along the M11 and M25. We arrived shortly before David and the children got back from swimming in the company of Chrissy, who had arrived from Canada the previous day. We all went for lunch at the Red Lion somewhere in the country (beyond Markyate), a lovely pub with excellent service. Amy was not feeling too well, and we left without having sweet. However, this was compensated for somewhat by Chrissy’s pavlova, which she completed after the children were picked up by Vicky. Before that however I had a good session of cricket in the garden with Oliver, who is a promising bowler. Others joined in now and then.
We left not long after enjoying the pavlova, and Dot drove back to Norwich in close to a record time. I was feeling shattered. Meanwhile I suspect that Caddington was close to heaven on earth for those left behind.
Pressure has eased somewhat, although we still remain pretty busy. Weather is a bit cooler, but not unpleasant. Gave my talk to the Norwich tourist guides on Thursday evening, and it went well after an initial panic when the projector wouldn’t work because it was switched to video instead of computer, something with my limited experience I didn’t know it could do.
About 15-20 guides present, including the unique and obscure Jude, who landed me in it in the first place. Surprisingly, she brought Roger with her. The talk lasted about an hour, with a few questions afterwards, and the guides were quite complimentary. I had been worried about speaking to them because of their vast knowledge, but I must have come up with one or two things they didn’t know.
One of them came up with something I didn’t know: one of the many John Pastons – this one a brother of Erasmus, Clement and Thomas – is buried in Huntingfield Church in Suffolk. Will have to go and look at some point. Did a bit of research on it when I came home.
I had managed to complete the brochures on Pastons in Norwich and Dragon Hall (a new, smaller flyer) by the time I gave the talk, and so was able to make them available. The Pastons in Norwich one was Vistaprint, and I had to manually correct an error in all 100 of them (my error), but managed to do it without spoiling the look. The other one I created myself on Pages. Left a few of them at the Library yesterday after attending a talk there by Dr Karen Smyth on Julian of Norwich.
This is Julian week, and after the talk (and a chat with Karen, who is speaking at Dragon Hall on the Pastons, and Louise Øhrstrøm, the Danish Julian expert who spoke at St Augustine’s) we went up and looked at a display of books on Julian. Interesting map of medieval Norwich.
March of the aliens
Afterwards Dot and I had lunch at Presto and had a long chat with Kathy and Roberto. In the evening we went up to the Cathedral Close for the opening event of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival, which was an amazing performance by a group of French artists unlike anything I’ve ever seen. They were rather like Iain M Banks’ Culture books, in that any attempt to describe what was going on would fall woefully short. Basically they were on stilts, shrouded in white, and used inflated costumes and lights to produce eerie, alien effects as they walked through the crowds, ending down on the Green with a kind of dance and launch of lighted balloons. Incredible. Dot and I were so intent on taking pictures that we lost each other in the crowds at one point, but were reunited under a lamppost by the Green. I am not easily impressed by spectacle, but this was totally exceptional.
Thursday had been a good day even before the talk at Central Baptist Church to the guides. It was one of those days when everything falls into place. After taking Dot up into the city I left the car at Kwik Fit for a slow puncture to be fixed, and while there noticed that they did windscreen wipers. Dot had broken one of hers, so when I returned with my car later in the day, she took hers, and they did it on the spot. Also arranged for BT to come and install Infinity (there’s a poem in that somewhere) and British Gas to do our annual service. And I got in touch with Andrew’s carer, had along chat and got her mobile phone number. Should be going over there on Tuesday with Dot, hopefully to catch the doctor on his ward rounds and to see Minster Lodge, which Andrew said would “do for now”. Deep shock.
On Wednesday I had a nice surprise when I visited the doctor: my blood pressure had dropped considerably, despite my not taking the additional pill that the doctor had been under the impression I was taking. He still tried to persuade me to take it, but I declined.
In the evening Dot and I went to the Christian Resource Centre to hear the coroner, William Armstrong, give a before-dinner talk. He is an old admirer of Dot’s (they were at City College together), and the two of them had a chat afterwards while I was talking to Régine Godfrey and her husband Peter, next to whom we had been sitting. She is French and writes for an Archant magazine; so we had something in common (complaints about page designers). I was also able to keep up with her remarks about French politics and the French words that she used on and off, so I was quite pleased. They live in the old hospital complex on St Stephen’s.
The talk was excellent too, as was the meal, though I think I prefer the usual format of having the meal first.
On Bank Holiday Monday we called to see Jessie for tea and cake, then I walked to the cemetery to get a bit of exercise. Dot joined me there, of course. A beautiful day, and I think we did well to keep clear of the crowds who apparently, and understandably, flocked to the coast. Today we’re awaiting the arrival of Linda to cut our hair. Much cooler now, with a bit of rain.
Not so much a hiatus, more of an abyss. Been working hard for days (I know it doesn’t sound like me) and I’ve still got piles to do. Don’t really know how it happened. Also I haven’t been sleeping well: watching wrens in the garden at about 6am today. So I’ve let the blog/diary slip a bit.
It started with the Paston Open Day a couple of weekends ago. There was the set-up on the Friday, which wasn’t too bad, followed by a full day on the Saturday. That was also quite enjoyable. With Caroline and Rob read a couple of letters and poems from the pulpit, then partook of a tour of Paston Hall grounds with guidance from Lucy and the owners, Mr and Mrs Clark, an accommodating couple who also let us see into their cellars. There’s obviously still lots to be dug up in the garden of historical significance, but I’m not sure how much of their garden they want dug up. Been very good about it so far. It matters very much to certain of our society exactly where the hall used to be, but I can’t get worked up about it.
In the evening of the same day Dot and I went to Prezzos with the Robinsons and their friends, Jean and Alan from London, to celebrate Philip’s birthday. Had a Fiorentina pizza purely to refute Philip’s announcement that I had nothing else but pollo al funghi, and very nice too. we indulged in prosecco beforehand and they all returned for coffee afterwards, so it was quite a full day.
On the Sunday I preached in the morning in the absence of Dot, who had a concert at Hindolveston in the afternoon with the Sillars Orchestra. She needed to get there in good time to rehearse, so went on her own. I joined her about 15 minutes before the concert began at 2.15pm, and sat with my old school colleague Neville Thrower, whose wife Mary is also in the orchestra. Enjoyed the mixed music: the violins sounded particularly good.
All through the week I was catching up with mainly Paston paperwork: for instance, I had to write an hour’s talk which I am giving to the Norwich Blue Badge guides this week. It’s written, but I have to try to work out some pictures, if I can get hold of a projector. Then on Friday I was presented with some stuff to edit from South Norfolk Healthcare, and I also put together a brochure on the Pastons in Norwich and wrote a piece for my website, but I’m not sure about that yet. I’ve also been updating the Paston website, which threw a frustrating wobbly at one stage.
Meanwhile I won a good win at chess on the Monday (against Yosif Antonov) and attended the Paston Heritage Society annual meeting on the Tuesday (with Dot). This meant missing the church agm, but it was a good evening, with excellent sandwiches afterwards and some cider in the bar with Rob and Penny before. Good attendance of 19: I said a few words about Dragon Hall, and Peter Stibbons put on a much lengthier presentation about his research website and the DVD he’s putting together.
On Thursday (with the weather all week sunny and reasonably warm) I had another session with Sharon, who decided to book me in for an x-ray, as the shoulder was not showing much improvement. Afterwards Dot and I had lunch with the Eagles (Sue and Roger, not the group) at Mambo Jambo in Lower Goat Lane: they had a voucher and treated us. Really good time (we get on very well), and good food, but I took the rest of the day to recover from it. Sort of Mexican-American, and very filling.
A lapwing at Strumpshaw
On the Friday we had booked a tour of the Cathedral Library, which turned out to be extremely interesting, being much more extensive than I thought. It was led by librarian Gudrun Warren, who cuts an unlikely figure for a Cathedral librarian, but is very knowledgeable and helpful. I must pop up to the library one day and have a browse. The tour ended with scone and tea in the Hostry that was worth the price on its own (£5). Got talking to a nice couple from Beccles.
So a nice relaxing weekend? Not exactly, though it was very pleasant, except for the disappointment of Norwich City managing to lose to Aston Villa at home and put themselves in real danger of relegation. We heard this when we were walking around Strumpshaw Fen with David and Kristine, who were up for the weekend. This had meant of course that Dot couldn’t go to the match, so we used the ticket (from Jonathan) for Fred, who happened to ask on the offchance and picked it up just after lunch.
Another warm day, and Strumpshaw Fen was beautiful, though I was pretty tired by the end. Dot cooked in the evening, but on Sunday we had lunch at Prezzos after going to church and listening afterwards to a talk on Lady Julian by Denise Treissman, who was very stimulating and has a nice manner. After lunch we walked up to Julian’s shrine, which was surprisingly empty (it was Bank Holiday weekend, and Julian Week starts today). Popped into the garden afterwards. Very peaceful.
On Saturday morning, pre-Coomes, I had a call from Andrew’s named nurse Vicky at Warwick to see if we were coming over because they needed more clothes for him. Happily, they were willing to fetch them from The Langleys themselves. Feel I ought to go over, but not sure I have the energy. He has an additional medical problem, but we’re not sure if he might be trying it on. The nurse says that a prospective place for him had been located: Minster Lodge in Earlsdon. No doubt a visit will be arranged there for Andrew soon. He will have to agree it, and then there will be all the problem of moving his stuff. Phil is feeling better, and is keen to help, so that’s all good.
