24 January 2009

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Just for the record, the scene outside our house when I discovered the wing mirrors had been smashed up. Our next-door neighbour, Mary, came round yesterday and said she had heard something at the same time. She was very sympathetic. Dot told her about our plan to invite neighbours round, so it’s beginning to look as if we’ll have to get our fingers out and set a date. The last few days have been very wintry – two of them extremely wet too. I seized on a bright moment about 4pm yesterday to do a walk of just over a mile that included two stiff climbs. To my surprise I managed Gas Hill with no real problem and without stopping, so my energy must be back. At the time Dot was in Ipswich at a Philosophy for Children meeting: she went by train after discovering it was only £8.50 return.

I’ve spent quite a long time preparing my sermon for tomorrow on the conversion of St Paul, mainly because I kept discovering interesting things about him – for instance, why he changed his name. As usual I got far too much material, and it’s a bit long. Dot says it can’t be too long, but she’s just being nice. Spent some time today photocopying some material she got from Ipswich.

We’ve seen the Bob Dylan film, I’m Not There, which I got for Christmas from my son, and it was fascinating. Not easy, but really interesting followinig the director’s train of thought. Cate Blanchett was brilliant in her impersonation of Dylan.

21 January 2009

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Beautiful day, but cold. To celebrate Jessie’s birthday, she took her niece Dot and me, with her son Roger and her friends Janet and Ray, to Elderton Lodge for lunch. Lovely setting: deer in the park, folly in the distance. Meal was delicious: I had game and duck terrine, followed by game casserole with short crust pastry and a fantastic Eton mess dessert. The wine was good too. Afterwards we repaired to North Walsham, where I had another cup of tea and Jessie (pictured) tried to make us eat even more – unsuccessfully, in my case. Left just after five to pick up my car from the garage, where it was having its wing mirrors replaced.

You may wonder why it was having its wing mirrors replaced. I woke on Monday morning, after winning a long chess game the previous night, and found both mirrors smashed, and bits scattered around the path and road. As I was taking pictures Sam, who lives at Number 15 and has a two-year-old called Ellie, told me she had seen a gang of five youths running up the road at 1.30am and kicking all the cars, then wrenching off my wing mirrors. She yelled at them, but they just made a rude gesture at her and ran off. I reported it to the police and had my fingerprints taken for elimination purposes (I had handled the pieces from the wing mirrors). I believe the police have also spoken to Sam. Obviously they dusted the pieces for fingerprints as well, but I’m not optimistic. I rang the garage and discovered the mirrors would cost £260 to replace. As I have a £250 excess on my insurance, it was clearly a waste of time making a claim. So the vandals owe me £260. Fat chance. Tonight the car is in the drive. It is only six months since it was badly damaged by vandals climbing over it and denting it.

I’ve made entries to several competitions – mostly poems but also a short play and a short short story. These range from Kent through Wales and Ireland to Scotland, so I am casting my net wide. I’ve also entered the annual Norwich Writers’ Circle poetry competition. Well, you have to give it a go. Today we picked up the printing for Dot’s workshop next week. All looked very good until we noticed that a number of apostrophes hadn’t printed. As it was done through PDF files, I can’t understand how this could have happened, but Dot will give them a ring tomorrow. It’s not a complete disaster, because it’s easy enough to insert the apostrophes without making a mess, but it would be tedious. Dot is working extremely hard on her Philosophy material and had another two people sign up for her workshop today.

Through a Genes Reunited contact I have discovered that my mother’s grandfather and great-grandfather came from Sussex. Her grandfather, Charles Brown, lived in Brighton and then moved to Cambridgeshire, where he was head gardener at Hall Lodge, Milton, and married a local woman. My mother’s father was also a gardener, so I guess the skill was handed down. Her great-grandfather, Henry, was an agricultural labourer. So many agricultural labourers in my family tree… All ploughing the same furrow.

19 January 2009

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Dot on our walk near Caistor on Saturday. She has been with Barbara today, working on her philosophy with children stuff. I have been up to collect her pills, but otherwise have been working on poems and plays to enter into competitions. Have made some progress, but need to buy some more paper and A4 envelopes. Keep getting bizarre phone calls, from Zenith, market research people and other odd unknowns. Quite wintry today.

Yesterday I booked a couple of holiday cottages – one in Scotland for July, to be shared with David and Vicky and the children, and the other in Cheltenham in August, when we plan to go to Greenbelt with the Greens. Appropriately enough.

17 January 2009

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Another three-mile walk today, and the halfway point turned out to be French Church Farm (pictured), on Caistor Lane, where my paternal grandparents lived when I first knew them, in the early 50s or very late 40s. Later they moved up the road to The Hawthorns, a bungalow about half a mile away but on the main Norwich-Poringland road. I suspect the first at least was rented, and possibly the second. Strangely, despite all the changes in Poringland, The Hawthorns remains more or less as I always remember it – at least from the road. I assume that the chemical toilet has been replaced. French Church Farm now looks smart and is probably worth quite a lot. The barn where the pigs used to be has now been converted into a rather swish-looking quite separate residence.

The countryside there is quite undulating and strangely beautiful, at least in winter. There was a bit of a wind, but it wasn’t too cold, and we would have walked further if Dot hadn’t had stomach problems, which meant we had to cut it short. We’d parked on the low ridge where we saw the shrew a few days ago and have now completed another section of a walk given in a book we got for Christmas from Dot’s cousin Peter.

On Thursday we went to Bernard O’Brien’s funeral at Earlham Crematorium. I didn’t know he’d died till Peter Wright rang on Wednesday to let me know. Apparently he died on Christmas Eve: he’d been unwell for some time – with bad arthritis apart from anything else. His death resulted from pneumonia and heart failure. Bernard and his wife Barbara (and son Bart) had been our neighbours at Yelverton for 12 years. They lived in a chalet bungalow called Mallow, and Bernard was very mellow – a gentle giant who was generous and kindhearted as well as rather eccentric and full of esoteric knowledge. He made me a 7×7 “chessboard” which I still have beside my computer. There’s a Viking game you can play on it, and I may take it up in his memory. Barbara looked quite well, and Bart was extremely emotional.

I’ve decided to sort out all the files in my room, which is a bit of a mammoth task, but I suspect it will free up lots of space. I am determined to enter some competitions and am digging out a couple of plays I wrote but never got round to offering to anyone. They don’t seem bad to me, but then they probably wouldn’t, would they? I wrote a very short piece yesterday to enter in a short short story competition. I’d also like to continue with my autobiography-up-to-a-point, encouraged by Peter Beales publishing his. He sent it to us yesterday, and Dot has already started reading it. Haven’t written any poems this year yet, but I’ve discovered a few from the past that I think are quite good and might be worth entering in competitions.

We’ve just been practising the songs for tomorrow. I’ve written a new one, called Echoes of God, but I’m not sure it’s quite ready to be sung.

Norwich City have just won 4-0 after sacking their manager. Brian Gunn was the caretaker manager for today. Perhaps he should have a shot at it…

14 January 2009

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We’ve just been for a three-mile walk at Venta Icenorum, the Roman town about three miles outside Norwich, and this is Dot approaching the church in a mist that lifted as we arrived and came down again as we left. Other pictures on Flickr. In between, quite briefly, bright sunshine. We did the longer walk around the site, found a couple of swans on the river, which was flowing briskly, and some magpies on the hill on the other side. The combination of mist and sunshine was spectacular at times, with naked trees coming out of the mist like Romans emerging from the past. After finishing the round we walked a further mile and a quarter on permissive paths that have only recently been opened along the sides of fields. We walked up to a low ridge (the only sort you get in Norfolk) and sighted a tiny shrew by a marker post. Then walked past an Anglo-Saxon burial site marked by pines reaching into the sky, through the mist, towards the sun. All very pleasand and unexpected: in Norwich it has been bright sunshine all the way.

Earlier today looked at some cottages in Scotland for a possible holiday with David and Vicky and the children. We also received the sad news that Bernard O’Brien had died on Christmas Eve. It is his funeral tomorrow, and we hope to go. Bernard was our neighbour for 12 years in Yelverton – a gentle, eccentric giant.

Dot has been busy with her philosophy for children. She spent most of Monday at Terrington St Clement with Sue and Roger Eagle, and they have another three dates there in the next couple of months. Then she was down at Barbara’s all yesterday afternoon after we had had our hair cut. Naturally I have been putting the time to good use, though I can’t quite remember what I did. Our Tuesday Group was at the Archers’ last night, which meant we didn’t have to worry about cooking.

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.

7 January 2009

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Another entry for the Walker’s Diary: this is Ralph and Brian setting out from Bruce’s home in Sheringham on a mini-yomp on Monday. They were accompanied by Dot and me, Bruce and his wife Cynthia, and Ralph’s wife Lynne in very cold weather and occasional light snow. Further south – say Winfarthing, for instance – the snow was quite heavy and prevented Marion from joining us. Robin and his wife had bad colds, and also couldn’t make it. The occasion was a flying visit from Ralph and Lynne, who now live in the Seychelles. Cynthia put on a sit-down buffet (if such a thing is possible), with some delicious game soup, and a splendid time was had by all. The Robinsons’ bungalow is beautifully placed, adjacent to miles of woodland walks and only 20 minutes’ walk from the sea. Apparently the only bad thing about Sheringham is the appalling health provision. We gave Brian a lift there and (of course) back, calling at North Walsham on the return journey to drop off a belated present from Ethel at Sheila’s. A bit of snow had settled in the fields near Norwich, but it’s gone now, and the temperature is up a bit, but the news has been full of shockingly low temperatures, ice on Welney Wash and snow all over the place.

Yesterday Barbara, Dot and I spent quite a lot of time preparing PDF files of business cards, labels, compliment slips and folder pages for their new Philosophy for Children project. These have now gone off to the printer. Bit tricky getting the right colours, but I think they will look good. Used Tuesday Group to finish off the various foodstuffs left over from Christmas, an opportunity they grasped with relish…and mayonnaise….and various dips…and coleslaw.

Dot went to the dentist’s this afternoon for the start of some extensive treatment to ensure that her teeth stay with her, and in good shape, over the coming years. Will be pretty pricey, I expect.

4 January 2009

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A serene Princess Amy plays with visitor Matthew (not Harry) Potter in the living room. Matthew’s parents Kevin and Lisa joined us all yesterday afternoon after David and his family had gone to visit Kerry at Easton in the morning. Kerry is Vicky’s friend from way back. She used to live at Bury St Edmunds, which was obviously more appropriate for rhyming, though less convenient. At teatime, after the Potters left, the six of us went to Prezzo’s for a meal, and the children were great, despite Amy falling off her chair at the outset. Surprisingly, she didn’t find this funny.

It’s been pretty cold this year, and today the temperature has hovered around zero. There’s a risk of snow tomorrow, when we’re supposed to be visiting Bruce at Sheringham and giving Brian a lift. On Friday we all visited A Ethel and then A Jessie (following a visit to Sainsbury’s at North Walsham). We’ve been eating quite a lot of food, I’m sorry to say, and the extra weight gained will take a bit of losing. We did our best on New Year’s Day, when all six of us, plus Julia and Dave, went for a walk at Winterton. It was overcast, but not too cold, thanks to a lack of wind. I introduced Oliver to the art of tracking people through the dunes, and he had nearly as good a time as I did. We laid several successful ambushes, including one on Dot and Amy, who were also tracking through the dunes, only slower. Amy was mainly looking for good places to rest. David, Vicky, Julia and Dave were behaving like adults and walking in the valley. The Hemsby/Winterton valley has been a key place: I had lots of fun there in the 50s and 60s, then introduced it to David in the 70s, and now Oliver loves it too. An excellent New Year outing, which I entered in my new Walker’s Diary!

Dave and Julie had joined us for New Year’s Eve and left on the Saturday for Paul and Leanne’s. With impeccable timing, Leanne produced her second child – Sophie – yesterday, all ready for grandparents to admire. Our New Year’s Eve went really well, including the usual quiz and champagne. Anne and Philip joined us, and I adapted the quiz so that everyone could consult instead of being in competition. It worked quite well, though of course they got most of the answers right between them. Today the family left just after breakfast, and Dot and I went to church – since when she has been doing a lot of clearing up (with a little help from me). When we got home, there were two toy cars in the hall, but an empty house. Rather sad.

30 December 2008

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Granddaughter Amy on the phone at Nottingham to great-aunt Ethel, thanking her for her Christmas present. Tomorrow we will all be together again!

The weather has turned very c0ld – freezing by late afternoon, and the car did not defrost all day. We used Dot’s car to go to the supermarket this morning and paid what I believe to be a record amount for grocery shopping: over £140. Took a bit of time to get it all loaded in the car, of course. The rest of the day we’ve spent in preparation of one sort or another. I put together a quiz for tomorrow night and a bolt on one of the doors. Dot finished the house-cleaning she started yesterday and cooked the meal for tomorrow night, as well as various other tasks.

On Sunday night we had a family meal here, with Phil, Joy, Sam and Lucy joining the three of us. All went well, despite the oven playing up at a critical moment. (It’s still not right.) Then yesterday Phil drove Andrew back to Coventry with me as a passenger. We stopped again at Thrapston, and it was back on form, with the usual staff returned and the food and service quite reasonable. Traffic was fairly light throughout, and we took the direct route both ways, apart from my patent excursion via South Kilworth on the way back – not because it was necessary, but because it’s pleasant, especially the last few miles on empty roads across country.

Now we await half a dozen of the Tuesday Group, who should be providing some food (bring and share). The first one has arrived without any. Hope this is not an omen. Or something.

28 December 2008

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Grandson Oliver takes a break on the way round the Attenborough walk on Boxing Day, which was brilliantly sunny but with a fair ol’ chillin’ breeze, as they might say in Norfolk if they spoke Norfolk as badly as I do. It had got gradually colder as Christmas week went by, and this morning it barely crept above freezing, though there was only a light frost on the windscreen.

Andrew is here for a couple of days. We picked him up on the way back from Nottingham, where we’d spent a very calm and peaceful Christmas with our family at Julia and Dave’s home. Spot the deliberate error in that sentence: yes, it wasn’t calm and peaceful, because Oliver and Amy were there. But it was a lot of fun, and there were far too many presents for everybody. The journey up to Nottingham was very good, but there was a lot of traffic on the way back yesterday, and we eventually diverted off the A14 just after Huntingdon, and Dot navigated a new route through the southern Fens via places like Earith and ending at Mildenhall. We’d stopped earlier at the Thrapston Little Chef, which is usually good, but the service was appalling and the food only passable.

This morning I led morning worship at St Augustine’s. There were nine of us and two children, which is rather more than I expected. Mark Heybourne did a really good talk on Mary, and on bringing light into a dark world. Called at Phil and Joy’s afterward to pick up Andrew, and after a light lunch I took Andrew for a walk via the Rosary (put some winter plants on mum’s grave) and on to St James’ Hill, then back by the river.