Unsurprisingly, much time has been consumed over the past week with wrapping presents and writing cards, plus quite a bit of furniture rearrangement. After a false dawn on Saturday, Colin eventually came on Monday morning and transferred the shelves upstairs; so Dot and I now have separate studies, and I think both rooms look quite good. Hope the children agree.
It was a very wet weekend. On Saturday I drove to Mundesley for the third of the Paston Heritage Society writing workshops at a the Royal Hotel. I left slightly late because Norwich City were playing Everton on BT Sport. Dot was at the match, but I watched a bit before I left. Norwich City were playing very badly, and I was amazed later to find they had drawn 1-1 and could easily have won. So I was a few minutes late at Mundesley, and only five of us were there (including the tutor). It was quite interesting; I put up a vigorous defence of my use of commas and dashes, which was fun.
Later Dot and I went by bus with Anne and Philip to Jamie’s for a meal. No doubt because of the proximity to Christmas, this was much rowdier than usual, and the meal wasn’t as good as we expected. The free elements (on Dot’s gold card) were by far the best – a taste of pumpkin soup (with amoretto) to start and a mince pie to finish. However, our waitress was excellent. Philip and I waited for a bus back, but the women walked – beating us only because they ran, and Philip can only walk very slowly nowadays. Unsportsmanlike, I call it.
Yesterday seemed an odd day to me, but it started in lively enough fashion with the Archant canteen Christmas lunch. This was a bit heavy (possibly because I opted for the wrong things) but again the starter was very good and the canteen staff very friendly and helpful. Brian and Tricia, Robin and Shelagh and Paul and Maryta were there with quite a goodly number of others. Afterwards Dot and I went and bought a printer from Ryman’s, and I ran into Richard “Batso” Batson doing a bit of shopping. He has recently “retired” from Archant and is working for a different company in a PR role, which he seems to be enjoying.
Meanwhile Dot was busy buying a white printer to match the decor of the bedroom, and when we got out of the shop there was an unpleasant drizzle in the air which made the walk home unpleasant and seemed to literally put a damper on the day, which gave up the ghost. It was almost dark before 3pm.
At home I installed the printer (resorting to reading the instructions after an initial fail), and it now seems to be OK, though the print is not as clean as it should be. Spent some time trying to work out how to clean the nozzle. Haven’t cracked it yet. On the plus side, it does fit the decor of the room, and it does work wirelessly, though I have a connecting wire in reserve.
Dot has been out and about today and is now at Little Plumstead for a governors’ meeting of some kind. It’s a toss-up whether she gets back before she’s due to have her hair cut. No word from Linda.
Very sad news yesterday: Geoff Saunders has died after a long struggle to recover from his operation and subsequent stroke. He had a couple of falls, breaking his arm and then getting a blood infection. He then had a heart attack while in a nursing home. I had visited him several times when he was in hospital and then at home afterwards, but thought he was recovering.