The weather has turned very soggy indeed over the last week, and overcast too. This has however enabled me to finish current work on the Paston Database, initial work on Joy’s book and editing of the Julian Centre leaflet (requested by Howard). Amazingly there was only one day (yesterday) this month so far when I failed to complete 5000 steps, and that was because it was too wet last night to walk up to the Cote in Exchange Street for a meal, and we had to get a taxi.
The meal was a late celebration of Anne’s birthday and was very pleasant. I had steak frites and everyone else had fish. We walked home, but it wasn’t enough.
On Monday I walked to the dentist in the rain to discuss whether he really needed to do a deep cleaning procedure. We talked for about 15 minutes, but eventually I gave in. He did it this morning (more rain on the way home), and it was only mildly painful, but it’s the after-effects I’m concerned about. To stop thinking about it (partly) we went to the cinema and saw The Aftermath, which was pretty good in that it made me think about what it must have been like in Germany immediately after the war.
After my first visit to the dentist Dot and I took the Paston display boards over to Lucy’s, where we had tea with her and Naomi. She is still complaining about how UEA hijacked the Paston project, without realising how her resigning from it at the outset didn’t help in that area. Quite frustrating to talk to her.
In the middle of the sogginess we had a dry spell late on Saturday – enough for a longish local walk –and a really nice day on Sunday, when we drove out to How Hill in the afternoon and walked down to the river, where there was the unexpected bonus of a wherry on display and open to boarding. So we did that and had quite long chat with the volunteers, who were not local enough to have heard of Timothy Coleman, whose family owned the boat – the Hathor, which was Egyptian-themed. They did know a lot of other stuff, though. Beautiful vessel.
We also looked round the eel-catcher’s hut, had an ice cream and went for a walk, though not in that order. Really lovely afternoon.