Harry and Meghan’s attempt to upstage Norwich City’s stunning Championship-winning achievement by producing a royal baby yesterday fell sadly short. About 20,000 people attended Carrow Road in the afternoon for the testimonial match of Russell Martin and Wes Houlihan, which took place large in persistent rain, and for some reason I was one of them. OK, it was to support my wife. Since you ask, Wes’s team beat Russell’s team 7-4.
The first team and hangers-on did a tour of the ground first, but by the time we’d found our way in we just caught the end of it. This didn’t matter too much, as Dot had walked into the city earlier to see the Norwich City bus as it reached Tombland. It wasn’t raining then, but I was in North Walsham to pick up a projector from Rob for my talk at Swaffham on Thursday.
Inside Carrow Road, hardly anyone mentioned the royal baby.
The Canaries’ Championship triumph had been confirmed the previous day, not long after my sermon at St Augustine’s. The day and time of the key final match away to Aston Villa had been switched to lunchtime on Sunday, but I had already booked us into a concert at Orford Church at 4pm. The match started at 12.30pm; so Norwich scored the first goal – and Villa replied – while we were still at church, though after the service. After a quick lunch we drove south, listening to the second half on Radio Norfolk and wondering when it would fade out. We stopped just short of the Waveney Valley to listen to the last five minutes, and as we did so Vrancic scored for Norwich. Since Sheffield United were drawing with Stoke, this meant the Championship was virtually certain, and so it proved.
This put us in a good mood, of course, and we got to Orford in plenty of time, eventually parking by the side of the road in the village. The concert, by the Prometheus Orchestra, was in St Bartholomew’s Church, and because we were early we got a front-row seat, despite our lack of an upper-class accent.
The first piece was Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, which is the main reason I’d booked, because Dot is a Vaughan Williams fanatic as well as a Norwich City fanatic. It was beautifully played, with the orchestra split. This was followed by a flute concerto by Damase, which was pretty amazing: the flautist was Anna Noakes – a larger-than-life character in every sense, including the shiny golden dress. She also gave a witty introduction. After the interval, during which I wandered outside for a bit, we had Mendelssohn’s fourth Symphony – also excellent: I particularly like the way he used the cellos in the second movement.
Afterwards the sun came out and we wandered round the village and then drove on to the quay, where the view was stunning, especially as the weather contrasted with the earlier part of the day. We then drove home in sunny mood, despite the appalling Suffolk drivers, who seemed to think the ludicrous speed limits were something reasonable that you had to keep to.
The previous day we had celebrated Phyllis Seaman’s 90th birthday with a party at church. Dot spent most of the day baking a very nice cake, and there was a goodly gathering. I did a bit of ferrying backwards and forwards in then car, firstly Phyllis and then Ellie, both in the company of Sophie. Not quite as easy as it sounds: Gildengate is very narrow, and they wanted to come in through the churchyard (no steps). I had to reverse quite a long way and then turn round in a narrow gap. Three times. Great fun.
Going back to the beginning of the month, Dot and I had lunch with Angela and Rodney at the Ugly Bug – now for some reason called The Lurcher – at Colton. Not a bad meal, and we had coffee afterwards chez Ellis, before hastening back to pick up Dot’s pills, which she had been a bit late ordering. At last returned the “frames” for our anniversary pictures.
On Friday we helped Paul out by having tea with Maryta while he was at the doctor’s, because the carer had to leave early. Not a problem, though Paul was delayed at the doctor’s and worried too much about getting back.
This morning (Tuesday) we had our new table delivered, and I went up to the Archant coffee morning, followed by Dot when she had got herself sorted out. Afterwards we took the old table apart and put it in the garage. Not easy, but during the process our table tennis table was admired by a local drug addict.