OK, so now it’s summer again. Confused? Me too. Lovely warm sunny day today: walked up to church at lunchtime to sit in as cyclist-counter for the sponsored cycle ride in aid of local churches. Discovered previous three cyclist-counters had not turned up. Counted only five cyclists, and they all came at once. Cyclists are like buses… However, several people called in to look at the church (Stuart the church history man officiating) and I spent some time talking to two eight-year-old girls who didn’t believe in God but wanted some balloons, biscuits, drinks, stickers and a postcard. If they don’t believe in God, where do they think the balloons came from? Ha! Nice girls, actually.
After Ann and Howard turned up to take over, I met Dot at Caffe Uno and had a pleasant lunch, then – acting on a tip from Howard – discovered a church on the corner of Queen Street and Tombland which I’d never noticed before: St Mary the Less, entered by a narrow gateway and surrounded by other buildings. Disused now, it used to belong to the Walloons from Holland and Belgium. Contains impressive copy of a Rembrandt portrait. Walked home through the Close and along the river, pausing to watch a few minutes of a rugby match. Then completed sermon for tomorrow while Dot did some work on her Philiosophy4Children scheduled for Monday and did some ironing in the garden. Well, it’s sunny, so she has to.
Last night drove out to Corpusty for a private view of Annette’s latest exhibition, which she shared with Diane Griffiths and a couple of others. Met a few of her friends and Marilyn Jeffries,a founder-member of InPrint who now goes her own way at Wells. Also met a wonderful painter called Susan who cornered me delightfully for about quarter of an hour. It was Oliver’s 7th birthday – didn’t speak to him during the day, but his Dad sent a picture of him eating a birthday meal. Today he rang us while we were at Caffe Uno, and we had quite a conversation. The family were on their way up to Nottingham and enduring some traffic problems.
Earlier yesterday visited the andrology nurse at the hospital – Liz Rooney the cyclist (they’re everywhere) – and she showed me how to inject myself in a very tender place in an attempt to put right a technical problem. Didn’t have any effect, except some aching and itching. On the whole I decided I’d rather have the problem, and I shall tell her so when she rings on Monday. Bit depressing really. Am still reading Stefan Zweig and enjoying him enormously: gets to the root of emotions superbly but also keeps the story moving forwards.