Had a message this morning to say that my uncle Paul had died in the early hours. He was 96 and the last surviving Lenton of his generation. For the last few years he had been living in a care home at Horsford and had a kind of dementia. I visited him last Christmas, and we talked a bit about when we used to play football together.
Mark (his youngest son) sent the message, and I spread the word by sending a text to my cousin Jonathan and an e-mail to Ann in Liverpool. I then rang Barbara but found that she and Roy had been living separately for the last three months; so I spoke to Roy, then rang Barbara In Cromer.
On Monday we went to a science/faith lecture by Prof Mike Hulme at the Cathedral on the subject of climate change. Mildly interesting, but precautions were taken to prevent any meaningful discussion; so I guess his “deny-them-oxygen” attitude hasn’t changed. Interesting phrase (he did use it, but only in the questions section).
It’s been pretty wet all week. On Tuesday we called in to see Maryta on her birthday and to eat a bit of cake. We arrived shortly before them (they’d been out to lunch) and when they did arrive Maryta wanted to leave immediately for St Benet’s Abbey. We declined this option, but the offer was repeated after the tea and cake. We declined again.
The next day I went with Dot to orchestra so that I could spend time with Neville Thrower in the nearby pub. He had been having problems following his therapy for prostate cancer and had seemed to contract a kind of epilepsy, which meant he couldn’t be left alone (his wife Mary was playing clarinet with the orchestra). However, he had recovered well following an adjustment of his medication, and he seemed fine. We had a good talk, and I managed to carry two glasses of drink from the counter across to our table, only realising halfway that I was using my left hand. I didn’t spill much.
The next day it rained again, but I took advantage of a dry period to walk to the Norfolk Record Office for a volunteers’ session on data manipulation on the Paston website. There were only two volunteers there –Sue from Mundesley and Nick from Norwich – but Peter and Gary Tuson were there with data genius David Viner. I actually understood quite a bit of it. Dot picked me up at 6.30, and we had a quick beans on toast before proceeding to St Luke’s for the book club with Carrie, which was not quite as good as last week, but OK.
Yesterday we had our hair cut and then went to Morrison’s. I put the shopping away while Dot went to pay a cheque in in the city (plus one or two other things). On her way back she got drenched in a thunderstorm downpour between the bus stop on Thorpe Road and our front door.