Going back a week, I completed Thursday the 18th by making one of my sporadic attendances at Jurnet’s poetry evening. Colin Payne and Hilary were both there, but attendance generally was a bit low. I read my poem about Adam Cohen and a new one called Earlham Hall. The theme of the evening was “Fathers”. We finished at 9.30pm, which was good.
The week was somewhat dominated by the CNS fifth form 1961 annual reunion, which on this occasion was in the form of Desert Island Discs. I wasn’t involved in that until Tony Friedlander managed to fracture his hip playing tennis, which meant I was asked to take over from him as one of the interviewers. Since I can’t resist putting myself in the forefront, I agreed.
I was interviewing someone I didn’t know – or to put it another way had gone through five years at CNS without consciously meeting. He had been in 5X and his name was Mike Smith. Adrian – now attaining the elusive title of slowest and worst driver I have ever been driven by – took me to Upton, where Mike lives and where he has the largest share in a community interest company, in this case a pub.
I wasn’t sure how we’d get on, and I think he was a bit worried too. But in fact we got on very well, though he’s quite different from me – a rough-round-the-edges businessman who started at the bottom and did extremely well. We had lunch at the pub and talked through Tony’s notes, correcting them where necessary.
His first wife had died a few years ago, and he had married her closest friend, Anna, who was really nice. I introduced her to Dot at the event itself, which was on Friday, and we all got on very well. We had lunch at the Louis Marchesi first – OK, but not great – and then proceeded to St Martin at Palace Plain, where Desert Island Discs took place, complete with comfy chairs. I did OK, I think, despite Adrian having some sound problems to start off with (we were on first), and Mike was quite happy. He had some good stories; so it wasn’t difficult.
The other two interviewees were Les Pye (policeman) and Roger Cawdron, owner of several pubs in Norwich, including the Ribs of Beef. I didn’t interview them, and it all went remarkably well. We were able to give Fred and Sue directions out of Norwich afterwards!
On Thursday we had a bit of a shock when the MX5 failed its MOT test and we were told we would be paying well over £1000 too get it through. We thought for a bit about becoming a one-car family, but after talking to the mechanic and service guy at the Mazda garage we decided to grit our teeth and carry on, at least for six months. The car is now in the garage awaiting repair.
The weekend was quite warm and mainly dry. On Saturday Dot and I went for a walk towards the end of the day and had a drink at Wetherspoons by the river. Very pleasant. On Sunday we went further afield after the service – where I just got back in time to pray after getting the car to rescue Phyllis from beside the road. Ray had gone to walk with her, but she found it too much. We took her home, and when Dot and I visited her after the service, she was much better.
After lunch we drove to Winterton, where it was still warm but with a bit of an onshore breeze. We walked a fair distance and then had a cup of tea outside the cafe just before it closed. The beach at Winterton has changed again, and is extremely attractive. We saw a couple of seals, plus a family of idiots climbing up the cliff below a hut on the brink. Sadly, it didn’t fall on them. Obviously I don’t mean that. Much.
Yesterday Dot was out DSSO-ing in the Stalham area while I took a bus to the UEA for a Paston database practice session with some volunteer students from UEA and Gary and Jenny from the NRO. This was led by Peter with assistance from his web expert, David Viner. He was not helped by Karen disappearing to get some books and not coming back (we later found she was in hospital again), Rebecca just not coming, and Matt not coming because his stepfather had gone into hospital at Lynn.
Karen was supposed to be supplying a log-in to the UEA system; so Peter spent some time trying to get one from the office. Fortunately the students had their own log-ins. The whole operation was pretty complex, and at the end Gary suggested making it much simpler, which I had to agree with. Still, the students (postgrad I think) seemed to cope.
In the evening we drove to Trinity for a really good talk by Stephanie Bryant of the Faraday Institute. She spoke about science and faith as seen by young people, and how they went into schools and addressed the relevant issues – sounded very much like Philosophy, as Dot pointed out. We had a chat with her. She became a Christian after reading Roger Dawkins’ books, where she was fascinated by the science but completely unconvinced by the logic. She seemed exactly the right person to talk to kids.
It rained hard overnight (we’ve had quite a bit of heavy rain recently), but it’s now dry, and we shall be heading to Caddington later and staying the night – probably our last visit to the house, and certainly the last time we’ll see David and Oliver before they leave for Canada at the weekend.