We slipped into 2018 during a delightful evening and early morning at the Robinsons – just the four of us with some salmon, champagne and other assorted goodies. Oddly I didn’t feel at all tired at any stage. We drove home at about 2pm and slept soundly.
Earlier in the day I went to church and struggled with some carols on guitar while Phil led the service. Dot stayed in bed because she was feeling down after coughing a lot in the night and sleeping very little. Carrie was “preaching’ in the sense that she was down for it on the rota, but misread the rota/forgot. So we had audience participation, followed by mince pies. And so St Augustine’s continues in much the same vein as always.
Highlights in the few days following Christmas were very much centred on time with son and grandchildren, who left after breakfast on the 27th, the male members of the party with colds. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken them for a walk in cold weather the previous day.
The 27th was bitter over much of the country, and the A14 in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire was blocked with snow. Nevertheless we drove along it to Coventry the following day without much trouble, and spent a bit of time with a quite perky Andrew. We gave him a large book with beautiful pictures and took him for a short walk because we wanted to call at Boots.
On the 29th we partook in another get-together of neighbours, this time at No 11 (Des and Chris), where we were introduced to the only top-of-the-road neighbours we didn’t know – Mary and her son Jamie (No 15). Mary teaches at a Montessori school up near the UEA, and Jamie is at university. He has three sisters who did not appear, and as far as I know, don’t live at 15. Spent some time in the kitchen talking to Bob, Jamie and Des.
The weather has been mixed, with the odd milder day but a lot of rain. The river has been running high in Norwich for the last few days, and there has been a huge amount of flooding in the Tas valley and around Costessey and Hellesdon, I believe.
We opened the new year, after waking late, by going to Norwich v Millwall at Carrow Road in the company of Des – because Jonathan was still ill and his friend Chris therefore couldn’t come either; so we had two spare tickets. Down 1-0 at half time, things looked a bit worrying, but City fought back to win 2-1 and should have scored more.
Before the match I returned Anne’s phone to Philip outside Yellows. Dot had brought it home by mistake after the merrymaking. To be fair, it is identical to hers.