Still thinking about the great time we had at Portsmouth, which may be why I lost at chess again on Monday – or I may just be losing it completely. Despite this, new prospects may be opening up: on Tuesday Anne Coomes arrived, and we spent most of her visit discussing the possibility of my doing training sessions across the country for diocesan communications officers.
Anne, as well as being the ex-wife of my good friend David, is in charge of Parish Pump, a web-based organisation which supplies material and assistance to editors of church magazines, and which has grown remarkably in recent years. The idea would be that I would do sessions based on my UEA lectures but adapted to suit the audience. We hope to give a trial to a specially selected group in Norwich, but of course that does depend on the diocese agreeing and supplying a venue. I would be concentrating on the quality of writing, but there are additional possibilities. I was thinking of deregistering myself as self-employed because of my lack of earning in the last two years, but I may now change my mind. We’ll see.
Anne went off to Northamptonshire yesterday morning, after I registered her on Facebook. I guided her to Cringleford and then did a bit of walking. I had the idea of walking home, but found myself looking round the burial ground at Eaton, which I stumbled upon, and then found it was – amazingly – too warm to walk very far, especially as I had woken very early and written a new piece for my website. So I caught a bus on Newmarket Road (I had probably walked a couple of miles anyway), which took me home, where Dot was working hard on her pre-inspection briefing: she’s doing an inspection at Hickling on Maundy Thursday.
Later she walked up to Rymans to buy some paper for the printer and purchased 5 for 4 because it seemed a good deal. The trouble was, it was a very heavy deal, and she struggled down Prince of Wales Road, stopping every few paces. I had gone to meet her, but for reasons which need not detain us thought she had gone to Morrisons, which is in the opposite direction. When I contacted her by phone from Morrisons, she was about a third of the way down the hill, and I eventually reached her roughly halfway down, where she had ground to a halt. By the time we got home we were both pretty exhausted, but she still had to go to Gillingham, where she is a governor, for a 6pm meeting. I watched Spurs beat Fulham 3-1 in an FA Cup quarter final instead, which was slightly more restful, though Spurs were pretty awful in the first half (HT 0-1).
Today she has gone to Kessingland for a DSSO visit, followed by lunch with Anne, and this evening we’re at the Theatre Royal for an Alan Bennett play, Enjoy, starring Alison Steadman, one of my favourite actresses. Then off to Coventry with Phil tomorrow for a meeting with Andrew’s social worker.