Tag Archives: paston

20 March 2009

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As promised, another Winterton dunes picture: this time it’s Amy investigating one of the ruined structures at the village end of the valley. She heard us calling them sand dunes, so she decided to call them flower dunes. Very independent-minded girl.

I was wrong about the gas man: he arrived very early and said our boiler was not totally efficient but was working fine. This means the company has to tell us we should buy a new “green” boiler, but there’s nothing wrong with the old one, so throwing it away doesn’t sound very green to me. I am being environmentally friendly by continuing to use the one we have.

I won my fourth chess game in a row on Monday evening, and on Tuesday Dot, Barbara and I worked on a new leaflet for Philosophy4Children, which worked out quite successfully, I think, using Pages.

On Wednesday I visited my artist collaborater Ruthli and saw her second picture. I got quite a bit of inspiration as I looked at it, and several phrases sprang to mind. When I got home (after her husband Douglas showed me his amazingly organised garden) I managed to write a poem quite quickly, which was fortunate, because I had to get all four poems for the Norwich 20 Group exhibition in by the next day. This I managed to do, which was a relief. I quite like the poems, too. Ruthli’s house is amazing – absolutely full of art works of various kinds. The garden has sculptures too, so there’s no getting away from it. It’s totally wonderful.

In the afternoon, after Dot’s DSSO meeting, we had another visit from our financial adviser, who seems to be sorting out the best thing to do with Andrew’s money and Dot’s life insurance. I sense some coherence returning to our financial affairs – until, that is, we try to do Dot’s next tax return. This was followed in the evening by a district church council meeting and a distinct loss of coherence. For some reason these meetings always leave me depressed, even though 90 per cent of this one seemed quite uplifting. Then we started talking about decision-making and dialogue, which is all to do with whether we should attach ourselves to organisations like Transition Norwich, which in my view is quite wrong, since it is nothing to do with Christianity, is purely political and represents a point of view that would certainly not be shared by everyone in the church. Me, for instance.

Yesterday was quite cold and grey after some sunny days earlier in the week, and I was reluctant to go for a walk, though this is what I had planned to do while Dot was away on P4C business in Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich. In the end I got in the car and set off half-heartedly. I parked by a public footpath (part of Boudicca’s Way) at Arminghall, and the path over the field looked so inviting I decided to go a little way. But I was lured on and eventually did nearly four miles, round the lip of a quarry and across hilly fields to Caistor Lane, and then back by a slightly different route. Really enjoyed it in the end. Although the quarry is only yards from a road I have known well since my childhood, I had never actually seen it before. Since it is an amazingly large hole, this is quite surprising, but it is well shielded. I have become very fond of the countryside in that area around Caistor St Edmund. I suppose that area was part of my childhood, and I’ve always liked it.

I have more or less finished all the work I can do on the Paston Guidebook at the moment and need to try a couple of the walks and get back to Lucy for discussion. At the moment she is more concerned with the Grapevine exhibition which is coming up at the end of the month. I have sent out a large number of e-invitations and printed out some other stuff for it. More to be done, though.

14 March 2009

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A picture I took quite a few years ago now, when the River Bure froze. Lost a bit of its colour, but I like the composition.

Quite a quiet week for me, though Dot has been pretty busy, returning to Terrington and visiting a couple of other schools. I won another game of chess, in the club tournament, and I need to maintain this winning streak to finish in a reasonable position, though I won’t win it. I’ve sorted out the Paston Guidebook material – though I haven’t started editing it – and printed off my own booklet of Paston poems, as well as laminating a few poems for the Grapevine exhibition. Bit of a panic with poems for the 20 Group exhibition: the poems with Sandra’s pictures are now sorted out, but I’m not seeing Ruthli till Wednesday, and I have to have all four poems in by Friday!

Took my brother Phil’s birthday presents round on Wednesday, but our conversation was cut short when his neighbour came round, so he came round yesterday to complete it. Now we’re awaiting the arrival of David and the children: David and I are taking Oliver to Carrow Road this afternoon in the hope that the team can maintain their form of Tuesday, when they won 2-0 against Cardiff. But they are still in dire straits. Dot is taking Amy into the city to meet Anne. The weather has warmed up markedly in the last few days, and it’s beginning to feel like spring. I need to get walking again.

26 February 2009

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This is the weathervane on Knapton Church in North Norfolk – designed by the famous Norwich School artist J S Cotman. The church also contains an amazing angel-strewn double hammerbeam roof, if you like that sort of thing. It is quite spectacular, and I visited the church yesterday, during a walk from Pigneys Wood, near North Walsham. The wood is in fact in the parish of Knapton but also part of the sprawling old village of Paston, which is why I was there, because it is the start of one of Lucy’s Paston Walks, which I was checking out. After walking down to the North Walsham and Dilham Canal and back (1 mile) I did most of the walk, a distance of about 4.5 miles. Lovely part of Norfolk, especially the green lane along the low ridge towards Knapton, though it was bit muddy in the milder but wetter weather we’ve been having.

Earlier in the day I’d driven to Barnham Broom Country Club to have lunch with Dot in between her visits to Barnham Broom School and Carbrooke School, in her role as diocesan school support officer. Very pleasant bar area and a good sandwich. The previous day I’d driven to Caddington to spend a couple of hours with David while Dot was at Terrington St Clement School running some very successful P4C sessions with Barbara. They stayed in a Premier Inn at West Lynn on Sunday and Monday night and did two full days on the Monday and Tuesday. An excellent response from children and teachers. She really does do an awful lot of good stuff for schools.

I had spent most of the Monday preparing stuff for Ambient Wonder: my chess match was cancelled in the evening. In the morning the cooker man had come to insert the new thermostat, which he did by taking the entire stove out of the fitted surround and then reinserting it – all of which can only have taken about a quarter of an hour. Amazing how quickly you can do something if you know what you’re doing. Late afternoon Lisa came round to record some of her poems for the Paston exhibition, and I delivered the CD to Lucy after the walk yesterday. I’ve entered three poems for another competition in Stafford and have re-entered three for the Wigtown competition, because the first three went missing. Sadly I seemed to have no record of which three they were, so I had to guess. Probably wrongly. Ho hum.

21 February 2009

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This is Wolferton station in West Norfolk, which until the late 1960s was the Queen’s private railway station when she was at Sandringham. It was closed in 1969 and is now a private residence. We visited Wolferton during our trip to West Norfolk last week. It was the first time I’d been there: I hadn’t realised how out on a limb it was. While we drove round it started snowing and didn’t stop for about six hours. You can see the first flakes in the photograph.

It’s warmed up quite a bit since then. It’s also been pretty damp and this week there have been some very dull days when the whole sky seems full of water, just hanging there. Today is much nicer: a blue sky. Dot is at Hempnall for a meeting with members of the P4C group which usually meets at Ipswich. They are putting a book together to introduce a particular strand of P4C to England. It takes the “philosophy” aspect a bit more literally than Dot’s project does, but it has the same basis.

Yesterday Dot was not feeling at all well, but she made a miraculous recovery toward the end of the day after taking an hour’s rest on the bed. Her cousin Angela and husband Rodney came for a meal in the evening, and we had a really good time chewing over family matters and other things. Earlier in the day I had a PSA blood test to be sent to my consultant in preparation for a visit next month to see if my treatment was totally successful. I am optimistic. After a short period feeling a bit under the weather about a week ago I now feel pretty good. I went with my nephew Joe to the Cathedral library in the afternoon to hear a talk on Julian of Norwich which was very well attended and quietly interesting. The speaker was Father Gregory from the Order of St Julian in America.

Earlier in the week I visited the second artist I’m collaborating with for the Norwich 20 Group exhibition. She is Ruthli Losh-Atkinson, and she lives at Eaton. Her current work is centred on a trip she took to the Arctic, and her pictures are abstract meditations on the tundra, which I suspect may be a bit of a challenge to write poems about. But I have a few ideas. Later I managed to win a chess game against an 84-year-old. Quite a nice finish.

I have visited both artists again since then: Sandra because she wanted to photograph the painting I have, and Ruthli because I forgot to give her a copy of my poetry book. I also called in at the Grapevine to take a second look at Martin Laurance’s exhibition and was sorely tempted to buy a picture, but restrained myself because I don’t have any spare cash at the moment.

On Wednesday evening Dot noticed while clearing the garden up that the kitchen drain was overflowing in quite a serious way. I called our insurers, and a very pleasant guy came the following morning to fix it. He also took a look at a mark on the kitchen ceiling which was spotted during our Tuesday Group meeting, but reassured us that it was probably a one-off overflow from the bath through the plug system. He was less reassuring about the firm that is fixing our cooker and suggested we check to make sure the costs weren’t too high. Ho hum. While talking to the drains guy we discovered that drain-cleaning products are generally useless, and a kettle of boiling water is the best bet to keep drains free. He also suggested running the dishwasher and washing machine through empty and at a high temperature twice every four or five months to clean the pipes. Not very eco-friendly at first glance, but probably worth it in the long run.

Later that day, while Dot opened her business bank account with Barbara, I went to Paston for a session on iMovie, which was fun because quite few of the Paston poets and artists were there, including Rupert, but probably didn’t increase my knowledge of iMovie very much. Afterwards I drove down to the cliffs again, past the deserted holiday camp.

5 February 2009

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This is Barbara and Dot as they set off for their head teachers’ conference on Tuesday. The snow had miraculously melted overnight, and there was no problem in reaching the venue – either for Dot and Barbara or anyone else. It was all a big success, with universally excellent feedback. The only problem came afterwards when an exhausted Dot sent out the invoices for the packs all addressed to the wrong school. This turned out to be a technology problem, which I helped her sort out yesterday. Lots of people indicated that they would be booking them to do in-school sessions. I greeted them with champagne on their return home and did all the cooking and preparation for the Tuesday Group, which makes a change. I usually sit around and let Dot do it. The only thing I’m worried about now is that Dot is practically working full-time at the moment. She visited two schools yesterday with her DSSO hat on and has more in the pipeline. She is also down for two inspections next month – following one next week. Today she has spent all day on her PIB (don’t ask) for that. Meanwhile the man came to change our electricity meter, which he did remarkably quickly.

This morning we woke up to more snow, but during the day it melted. Meanwhile in Caddington it is still thick, and the children and Vicky were all at home because of the treacherous roads. Here a meeting at Diocesan House was cancelled, though probably not for any good reason. Helped Dot, though.

Yesterday, while Dot was out at Hapton and Tasburgh, I picked up the Paston book from the library. The librarian kindly protected it with cardboard for me, and I just had to carry it down to the car. It is now in the guest bedroom, which is a little bit worrying as it’s worth over £1000. Of course, the average burglar wouldn’t know that and would be unable to sell it anyway. Lucy has sent me loads of stuff for her upcoming guidebook in the hope that I will be able to knock it into shape. I now have to work out which shape to knock it into.

30 January 2009

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How Hill nature reserve, near Ludham. I did a 4.8-mile walk in the area yesterday, after Dot and I had visited Jessie and then left some flowers at the cemetery in North Walsham. It was her mum’s birthday. We also left some on what Dot thought might have been her grandmother’s grave, though there was no gravestone. Then on to Ludham where we shared a turkey baguette in the King’s Head before she dropped me off and went on in her DSSO role to a school at Sutton, about four miles away. I walked some very damp roads before venturing into a deserted How Hill, where I walked down to the River Ant and took a couple of pictures before continuing back to Ludham church. No sign of Dot, so I walked on to Womack Staithe and back. I was about to go into the church when she pulled up. The longest walk I’ve done since my operation, and I felt reasonably OK, though tired. In the evening I went to a St Augustine’s local ministry team meeting in the Ribs of Beef on Magdalen Street, which ended with Nicholas, Howard, Phil and I (the only attenders) discussing concerts we had been to and the first albums we’d bought. Dot stayed at home. She’s been working too hard recently.

It was a cold day, as it is today, with a wind that’s biting if not particularly strong. We’ve just heard that my second cousin Jeanette and her husband, who were emigrating here from South Africa, have decided to go home. They did pick a particularly cold winter to come over here, and their holiday home rental in Cornwall has not given them much warmth. And in the current credit crunch crisis they haven’t been able to get jobs. Sad, really. I’d been hoping to get to know them via visits to Cornwall!

Today I’ve spent a few hours at Paston learning how to use iMovie with assistance from Lucy, who also gave me lunch. She’s a bit better at the moment, though long-term prospects aren’t much different. Naomi is also going through a rough patch and will have to come home for treatment, since the medical people in Durham have proved particularly inept at looking after her.

27 January 2009

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This is Dot’s cousin Roger in typically relaxed style, pictured at Jessie’s last week. Another family meal looms on Sunday, when quite a large number of people are due at Angela’s at Dereham to celebrate Ethel’s 85th. This was supposed to be a sort of a secret, but the cat has been let out of the bag by someone who shall remain nameless. As the nameless person’s husband is in hospital with pneumonia again, she can be forgiven. Dot has been at Ethel’s this afternoon, calling in with presents on her way back from Yarmouth, where she has had her first school visit as diocesan school support officer, followed by lunch with her friend Anne. She is keeping pretty busy: a long afternoon yesterday was spent with Barbara preparing for next Tuesday’s head teachers’ conference, including a visit to the venue – St Luke’s Church Centre.

This morning I got over an appallingly shoddy loss at chess last night by going for a walk that turned out to be nearly four miles. It started innocently enough with a call at the sorting office to post a letter for Dot, but then got out of hand. I walked up through the Rosary, down the steps to Cintra Road and down on to Thorpe Rod, left and up the hill again via Stanley Road and Harvey Lane, then through what was Pinebanks and down a footpath back on to Thorpe Road and up to the River Green. I sat on a seat for a while in the sun – the weather was really mild compared to what it has been recently, people were feeding ducks, geese and swans, and it was all pretty idyllic really. I then went really mad and walked up to Whitlingham Lane and over the rail footbridge on to the river path, where I noticed that work on the third Whitlingham Broad was far advanced. All we need now is a bridge over the river from Thorpe to Whitlingham. Someone … Anyone? A couple of pretty ramshackle vessels were moored there, and an old man had got a fire going on the bank. Not sure what for. I returned to the main road and caught a bus back to the station, feeling I had earned my favourite cheese and onion sandwich, which I bought from Budgens.

The rest of the day I’ve spent writing some liturgy for our Tuesday group. Sort of experimental, based on a book we went through for Advent and Epiphany. I had a phone call from Annette last night saying there had been a radio programme about the Paston book, following a page of publicity in the EDP, and as a result we had sold another four of the big hand-made books at over £1000 each. It would have been nice to have had this news the day before, when 15 artists and poets met at Cringleford to discuss the future of the project. The meeting was at poet Adrian Ward’s rather splendid house, and was followed by an InPrint meeting, which didn’t last long after I’d persuaded everyone to admit that they didn’t really want to apply for a grant to do stuff they didn’t really want to do and didn’t have time for. So we shall proceeed with the Paston project, producing more work, hopefully, and maybe running some more workshops. I’m not too bothered about the workshops, but Annette, Caroline and Lisa are keen. Fuller story on InPrint website.

Before the Cringleford meeting, Dot and I went to Martin Laurance’s exhibition at the Grapevine on Unthank Road – a splendid gallery which will be home to a Paston exhibition from March 29. Martin is a superb artist and worked on the Paston project (he used a couple of my poems for collaborative pieces). The private view was pretty full, and Rosemary, the librarian from Archant was there. So were Annette and Caroline, and so were some other Paston people, though I didn’t see them. They had probably already left by the time we got there. Dot and I only had a few minutes there because we’d been to church (I had been preaching on the conversion of St Paul), and Caroline gave me a lift to Cringleford so that Dot could take the car home. Later Dot picked me up and we gavc Lisa and her two children, Dash and Blossom, a lift to their place in Pottergate.

This afternoon Phyllis Seaman from church called unexpectedly with a gift of some windfall cooking apples. I love stewed apples. It’s my one weakness. No, it’s really one of many.

10 January 2009

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Just been putting together a mixture of old and new pictures for a photo book for A Ethel’s birthday as a surprise (unless she reads this, which is pretty unlikely, as she doesn’t have a computer and wouldn’t know what to do with one if she had). This picture features her and U Ted together with Dot and David, and a little bit of me. Must be around 1980, I should think – perhaps earlier. Dot and I had to research some old albums, which was interesting: quite a number of unidentified people emerged. The process was interrupted (a) by problems with the printer, which I think have now been fixed after many abortive attempts and (b) by an unexpected visit from Joe and Birgit, who got a puncture on the way and eventually stayed for lunch. They bought us a bottle of pear liqueur from Germany, which was very welcome though stronger than I remembered it. I’m not sure “though” is the right word.

Very cold today – a couple of degree below zero – so no real desire to go out. Yesterday I helped Annette take the Paston book to the Millennium Library (meeting Lisa there), where it has a display cabinet to itself. The cabinet was embarrassingly big, actually, but one of the librarians managed to find some relevant books to make the display look half-decent, and they also printed out an information sheet I provided – on disc because our printer had just “broken”. The breaking turned out to be a blessing in disguise (pretty heavy disguise, it must be said), because they printed it out at A3, which made it look almost professional on a stand in the cabinet. I could not have done that.

The printer “breaking” occurred at a difficult moment, because Sue and Roger Eagle were here discussing philosophy for children with Dot at what sounded a pretty deep level. While I lured Dot away to look at the printer I gave them some mini-baguettes which I’d bought from Budgens on the way back from the dentist’s, together with some cheese, a few crisps and a cup of tea – all in a huge rush because I was late to meet Annette. Aargh! It worked out all right in the end, though. Annette came back for a warm drink (she had been working at freezing Bally) and I put off my visit to the post office to retrieve an undelivered piece of mail. Dot then returned her to Bally and went to the supermarket while I caught up with various stuff.

Dot is now printing out some stuff for her P4C visit to Terrington St Clement on Monday. She’s been very busy over the past few days, and Norwich City have just lost again, which doesn’t help.

17 November 2008

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Went to Paston country today, had lunch with Lucy, who is off work more or less permanently with leukaemia, and then went with her and her friend Diana to Cromer District Council offices to take down the small Paston exhibition there. Diana took this picture. The weather was miserable: very cold and damp. Afterwards I called in at Wroxham Barns to take the Martin Laurance print for framing. I had intended to take Lucy’s too, but that turned out to be already framed. While at Lucy’s she showed me how to use Garage Band to record poems, and I hope to be able to record Caroline and Lisa. I am also intending to help Lucy with her guidebook of Paston walks, in return for which she’s going to teach me how to edit movies.

Yesterday was a significant Sunday, as it saw the farewell from St Augustine’s of our friends David and Bridget. They are going to a more traditional type of church in Norwich. Bridget is training to be a reader. We had quite a moving farewell liturgy, followed by wine and a delicious chocolate cake cooked by Anna. Howard preached a great sermon on thankfulness (among other things), and I led the service. We hope D & B will continue to come to our Tuesday Group. They have been a big part of what has been going on at St Augustine’s and will be sadly missed. In the evening Dot and I went to the Ambient Wonder planning session. We are doing a special AW at Stephen’s Church on Dec 11 – a Thursday evening when people will be passing on late-night Christmas shopping and might appreciate a bit of quiet in the middle of it all. Or not, I guess. Worth a try. Anna wants Dot and I to go to Greenbelt with them next year. Staying in a hotel, of course. Camping is right out. An over-my-dead-body scenario.

On Friday the four of us (Anna, Howard, Dot and I) had dinner at Vicky and Jared’s: a really lovely evening with Spanish food that was surprisingly wonderful.

3 October 2008

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Yes, it’s the Matterhorn, on a beautiful day last week. This week by contrast has seen a lot of rain and very blustery weather, and today it’s quite cold. I still feel as if I’m catching up, but really it’s because I’ve had extra stuff to do for our Paston project: I’m now producing a leaflet with artists’ and poets’ notes on it, as well as putting together some copies of my own Paston poems, which needed some tidying up.

We had quite a crowd round for our regular meal on Tuesday: much more of this and we might have to start rethinking the format, which may or may not be a good thing. And that was without three of our regulars. Dot had her first meeting at Diocesan House on Wednesday, sorting out her new job, and it went pretty well. Yesterday was busy: I had a dental check-up in the morning followed by lunch with Keiron at 18 Bedford Street. Excellent meal and a good chat: Rowan is expecting her first child on October 25. In the evening Dot came home early from a governors’ meeting at Gillingham so that we could go to Cinema City with Menita and Regis: the film started about 9pm. A superb French film: Il y a longtemps que je t’aime. Out just too late to get drinks, but we had a good chat afterwards: they used to live in Mulhouse, where we stayed on holiday.

Today Dot has been clearing out the shower room in preparation for its refurbishment next week.