Yesterday brought a welcome change in the weather. It was not only dry, but reasonably mild, and I was able to do a bit of clearing up in the garden involving the ivy, and the roses encroaching on our neighbours’ extension. Not that the neighbours seem to mind – Mary and Bob are not keen gardeners. They have bought a Mazda Bongle so that they can go and see their son in Doncaster more easily, but they were having trouble yesterday putting the bed up and down. They are not exactly nimble, and it looked tricky.
We were on our way to the charity shop at the time – depositing a couple of black bags with assorted items in them. Earlier I had been up to the post office to post Amy’s birthday card: I also bought some more stamps and in the course of doing so discovered that Amy’s card needed extra postage – fortunate.
In the evening David Archer rang us from Yorkshire, where he and Bridget are on holiday. I’m not sure why they rang, but they are apparently in the Goathland/Grosmont area, which we liked very much when Julia and Dave took us there from Scarborough seven years ago. We travelled on the Sir Nigel Gresley Mallard-type steam train, and I got a good video of it.
Later in the evening we had the annual parish council meeting, on Zoom, and it lasted about half an hour because the only questions came from Tony on two obscure financial matters. As we had not see the financial statement or annual reports, we had no questions.
During the day Dot rang to complain because the flooring for our shower room was so long delayed: we were promised a ring back, but nothing happened until 9am today, when the call came from Dovetail, and we have arranged the laying of the floor for Friday afternoon. I would say that would mark the end of work in the house: Barry finished his painting and decorating last Friday, but Dot has her eyes on one or two other things. Today looks quite pleasant again – Dot has gone to the shop, but some rain is predicted for later in the day. Of course.
Yes, it’s Amy’s 16th birthday! She is at school, of course, but we left presents last time we were in Aylesbury. We have a few more, which we will deliver next Wednesday, all being well. It will be half-term.
Last Thursday we went to see Paul and Maryta, because it was Maryta’s birthday. She is pretty much the same and wanted Paul to take her for a drive before we’d finished our cups of tea/coffee and slice of Christmas cake. Ho, hum. In the evening David FaceTimed us and was much more cheerful, particularly about his business. Dot went to a PCC meeting at St Luke’s in the evening and discussed arrangements after Sarah leaves – especially for the Christmas period.
On Friday the weather was a bit better and after Barry left (fairly soon after he arrived with his bill – a reasonable £320) we went to get some petrol in the car and to drop off Dot’s old printer at Ryman’s for recycling. Her all-singing, all-dancing new one is going well. Dot also had a Zoom meeting with one of her heads which I helped her set up, and it went well.
Dot spent most of Saturday cleaning the bathroom very thoroughly, including a bit of painting (eg waste basket). Norwich managed to beat Rotherham 2-1 away with the help of an own goal, an injury time penalty by Hugill and an earlier penalty save by Krul. We listened on radio instead of paying to watch it. David FaceTimed in the evening, and we had a long chat. Some time around now we watched The Interpreter, a thriller, on Netflix starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, and it was excellent.
On Sunday we chose the hymns at church, and Dot and I did the modern version of Amazing Grace before the service (largely ignored by the chatty congregation), and at the end we sang I will show you a path, one of my songs, which seemed to go down well. Still not sure about the music arrangements: we really have too many musicians, which is an unusual problem for small church. In the afternoon we walked to the card shop to buy birthday cards for Amy and Phoebe (who is 15 tomorrow). Dot has injured knee somehow, and it was still hurting, though improved over the week. In the evening we watched two films – Sexy Beast and Rio Bravo, of which the latter was much better.
Two other things. Howard had a rethink about my poems after taking advice; so I am back to my normal circulation of single figures. And I had an e-mail from Ann Rumsby asking for information about the Howards (!) of North Walsham. After taking some time investigating and sending a number of e-mails, I discovered a site called British Phone Book, where I found some addresses that seemed relevant. I e-mailed this information to Ann, and it turned out that she already had the most relevant address and one of the others. I was not over the moon about this. Interesting, though – I stumbled on that website because we had a scam phone call earlier that used a genuine phone number in Coventry, which I looked up. Unusual in that it had the name of the subscriber and everything.