Out of the blue, yesterday was stunning. Seeing a clear sky for a change from our bedroom window, Dot suggested we went for a walk, and I proposed Winterton, having seen a picture in the EDP of the way a recent storm had affected the beach there. So we went, and the day was even better than it looked.
As well as the blue sky, there was practically no wind, and it was almost warm. After buying a parking ticket we walked down on to the beach and found a small cliff had appeared halfway down it. We walked south until we could access the lower beach easily, and then walked north for a good distance. The “cliff” was deepest close to the cafe, where some old stone blocks had been revealed. Further north, with the beach almost deserted, we turned back up on to the dunes and walked back to the cafe, where we had some delicious rolls and very good tea (in my case).
Later in the day I walked up to a 20 Group private view at the Theatre Royal, where I spoke to Sarah Cannell, Martin Laurance, Sandra Rowley (an artist I worked with a few years ago), Peter Offord (a former Thorpe Hamlet Green councillor), and Chrissy Leech, a sculptor who turned out to live two roads away and have a studio in St Augustine’s. The pictures were of mixed quality, and I almost lost my scarf, but found it again.
It was hardly surprising that by the end of the day I found I had walked nearly five miles in all.
The previous day I did quite well at walking too, though the weather was pretty miserable. Dot and I went to the cinema at noon to see The Post, which was a stunning film about how the Washington Post defied threats from the Government to publish top secret papers about how the USA had made numerous catastrophic mistakes about the Vietnam war. It was extremely moving and made you wish that newspapers were like that now instead of rolling over and publishing any propaganda the Government wants them to.
As a newspaper person myself, it was also interesting to see how useless American newspapers are at layout and headline writing. I knew that, of course, but it was pretty striking. Anyway, the film is unmissable.
Later I walked Dot up to the Cathedral for a church schools event, during which she engaged the Bishop in interesting conversation about St Augustine’s and St Luke’s. Later I took the car up to the Close to meet her out, so that she could drive from there straight to orchestra rehearsal. I came close to forgetting her completely, because I didn’t hear the alarm go off. Ho, hum.
Earlier in the week I had been busy writing bits about various Paston characters for the Hungate exhibition, just about managing to keep up my walking at the same time (well, not exactly at the same time). This was after celebrating Jessie’s 85th on Sunday, when we hurtled out of the service (which I had led) to drive to North Walsham to pick up Janet and Judy to transport them to the Banningham Crown and meet Jessie, Roger, Debbie, Philip, George and Fiona for a meal. Made it in good time, in fact, but the meal was a bit slow.
As so often, the starter and the dessert were excellent, but the main was not impressive, except in quantity. I had a game pie: the meat was OK, but the crust was soggy and the vegetables were a bit ropey. The garlic mushrooms beforehand, though, were superb. Must remember to have two starters instead of a main next time. The weather was wet and cold.
We went back to Jessie’s for a drink afterwards. She paid for the whole thing, which was very generous. She’s doing remarkably well after her operation.