Just back from Eastwood, a few miles from Nottingham and the birthplace of D H Lawrence. It’s been a misty day, quite cool, and at 4.15pm the sun is only just breaking through. We visited the birthplace museum, where Janice gave us a thorough and interesting tour, and then the heritage centre, which was showing an exhibition of Lawrence’s first novel, The White Peacock. Interestingly at neither place was this novel on sale, which is not the greatest marketing achievement I have ever come across.
In passing, I should note that Eastwood is also quite close to Mansfield, early home of my paternal grandparents and birthplace of the eldest three of my uncles. Why they ended up there is a bit of a mystery.
This is the third day of our visit to Toton. Julia is seeming a lot better, although her ankle still looks rather forbidding, and she manages to get around very well. Yesterday she spent some time shopping in the Westfield Centre at Derby with Dot, while Dave and I walked across town to the Silk Mill – the first factory anywhere, apparently, and now hosting a photographic exhibition and a number of aero engines, about which Dave was able to enlighten me. We had sandwiches in a nearby pub and then met up with Dot and Julia again in M&S, to discover Dot had bought me a shirt and two trousers. That’s good, obviously. I was able to wear the shirt and one pair of trousers to a meal at Creme in Stapleford with Alan and Rosemary the same evening: amazingly we had run into them at Westfield (Thorntons cafe) earlier in the day. Just a coincidence – the (excellent) evening meal had already been arranged.
We got to Toton for lunch on Monday after a straightforward journey. In the afternoon we walked to the Hemlock Stone on Stapleford Hill, which I found quite haunting.
One or two other highlights from the past few days. On Friday Dot and I went up to Mousehold to play pitch and putt, only to find that the course was not yet open. The weather was very pleasant, so we went for a three-mile walk on the heath instead. Then I went to the doctor’s to have my blood pressure checked and found that it had improved markedly. Of course I still need to take the tablets, and will have it checked again in a couple of months.
On Saturday evening we went to the annual celebration of Norwich Youth for Christ, which was unexpectedly enjoyable. It was at Eaton Church, and Heather and Paul Cracknell were there. Mark Tuma’s final event for NYFC, and one of Dot’s final appearances as a trustee.
On Sunday I preached (not terribly well, I suspect) on the Ten Commandments and then we took Joy and Phil for the latter’s birthday lunch at Joe’s. We supplied pavlova and wine, plus transport, and the fun lingered on until dark. Phil is 60, and we had a good look at his new bike as well as a tour of Joe and Birgit’s new house.