October dawned very warm and sunny, but is now showing signs of slipping into autumn: a cooler feel to the weather, leaves on the ground, a strongish wind, and snow forecast for Scotland. Still quite pleasant, though, and it was very warm for Dot’s Dutch trip, which went well on the whole: it was quite a major event, and their workshops were full. The journey also passed almost without incident, if you overlook their not being able to find the car at Stansted when they got back – a purely temporary aberration.
I have been working hard on a couple of books: finishing off the Norfolk poems book – Words in a Landscape – with David, and getting the material together for Another Country – our next Paston publication. This comes to a head on Friday, when I meet with Rob Knee to decide what it will look like. The artists have suddenly come up with material, so the decisions may be harder than predicted.
Readers will I am sure be delighted and astonished in equal measure to hear that the rogue Humax has been working perfectly for several days. And Dropbox has finished its mammoth uploading of my picture files. Quite a relief.
Went to a concert at St Andrew’s Hall on Saturday. Vicki Ellis was on piccolo in the first two pieces and sat out the third with us. Apparently Dvorak has little use for piccolos. Nice to see her and her parents. Nick and Jan Miller were also there. Aunt E has been proving difficult over the last few days, calling out all and sundry, sometimes several at once. Dot has been out there today and was there yesterday too. E was not strong enough to make the planned visit to North Walsham with Dot yesterday, so I went instead, and had a rather nice meal with Dot’s mother’s cousin Sheila, her daughter Teresa, Teresa’s daughter Anna, and Anna’s son Harry (aged 18 months and very keen on tomatoes). That’s four generations in one room. Teresa (our bridesmaid 43 years ago) made a rather lovely raspberry-flavoured, crispy pastry dessert with almonds to round it all off, the only downside being that I then had to make a meal for the Tuesday Group while Dot went to the Nafpht annual meeting at the Ram, Tivetshall. Didn’t really feel hungry. Don’t know why.
On the way home from North Walsham we stopped to look at the church and hall at Oxnead (Paston connection), and encountered a young musician who was looking for the river so that he could get some songwriting inspiration. We walked down to the Bure with him and had a chat about the Pastons and other things. Turned out he was Andy Martin, guitarist and singer for Norwich-based band Astral Void, who I tracked down on the internet afterwards. Interesting.
On Sunday afternoon I decided to go over to Horsford to catch the end of the Norfolk Chess Championships. Glad I did: always get a warm welcome from chess people, and there were a couple of interesting games and anecdotes. In the end Mike Gough won by boring Mervyn Hughes into making a mistake, thus depriving Charlie Fry of his first overall victory. Watched a fascinating win by Dave Hall over Ron Hughes and was pleased to say I saw the winning moves in advance. Always easier when you’re watching.