Tag Archives: cinema

Local history difficult to pitch

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Dot by the Tower of London as daylight fails

At the end of a damp and gloomy week, there is a touch of sun in the sky. And there is some sense of achievement too, as I’ve finished and sent off the five poems to Ian Fosten. All I have to do now is turn up on Friday and say something about why I wrote them. “Because you asked me to” will not be an adequate answer. Dot has decided to come too, so I will have moral support. From there we will head north and stay the night at Toton by invitation, going on to Buxton the following day. I have also finished a sermon for Sunday, based fairly tightly on one I wrote exactly ten years ago.

On the subject of poems, Oliver sent me a brilliant one that he wrote at school. It’s about the moon, and called God’s eye, and has rhymes and similes and everything. Exceptionally good, IMHO, and he was sent to show it to the headmaster. Spoke to him and to Amy last night on the phone: Amy seemed to like the story I wrote for her and found it “very funny”. She thinks it’s my function to be funny, and she’s probably right. I must write her a really funny story.

Speaking of funny stories, I have just finished the current Booker prize winner, The Sense of an Ending, and it’s not funny at all. In fact it was rather disappointing, the plot depending on one character not revealing something that they had no real reason not to reveal and that was not too hard to guess anyway. I suppose it had some interest philosophically, but it belongs to a category that I find increasingly frustrating: well written but basically pessimistic and lacking in any trace of redemption. On a brighter note, I’ve now finished two of Kate Atkinson’s Brodie novels, which were unusual in combining good writing, murder and humour.

Going back in time – while Dot had a long lie-in, not knowing I’d left the house, I spent all of a chilly Tuesday morning in the garage showroom at Wrights, while a man did his best to disguise some scratches on the car caused by a vandal a few weeks ago, and another man tried to correct a problem with the direction of the lights. I think the latter was successful, but I haven’t really been able to try it out yet. Should find out this evening, when we eat at the Banningham Crown with Jessie and Roger.

I did go out to Mundesley library on Wednesday for a Paston-related Reading the Landscape session, during which Dr Richard Hoggett gave half a dozen of us some pointers on how to use computers to research local history. Difficult to pitch, you might think – and indeed one lady (out of an initial company of eight) left almost immediately after discovering it involved computers at a level beyond her expertise. Not sure what her expertise was. Rob had always intended to leave early, but another two also fell by the wayside after getting the direction they required. I could have left then too, but felt I should stay on as the only PHS representative, so I lingered. However, after 90 minutes I departed as well.

On Thursday Dot discovered she had a Nafpht meeting at Thurton, which interrupted our “day off” together. However it gave me a chance to finish off my poems. By way of compensation we went for lunch to Frankie & Benny’s, which seemed to be making an attempt on the Three Horseshoes slow service record until I complained, when the main course miraculously appeared. Staff were very apologetic, and the food, to be fair, was excellent. In the evening we went to the cinema to see The Iron Lady, which featured a tremendous performance by Meryl Streep as Mrs Thatcher but in the end I think got the balance slightly wrong: too much dementia and not enough time given to her earlier life. Still compelling, though.

Limping towards the end of the year

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It’s the last day of the year, and half-hearted grey rain is just about managing to fall from a half-hearted grey sky. It’s as if the year is struggling to make it to the end and may not quite get there. Dot and I are on our own. David is still in Caddington, where he has revamped the children’s rooms (viewed on Facetime), and I believe Oliver and Amy are returning from Lapland some time today. Our projected New Year’s Eve dinner with the Robinsons has been called off because Philip is unwell, but as compensation we have two Robinson tickets for Norwich v Fulham this afternoon (Norwich lost 2-0 to Spurs on Dec 27 – see last post).

I have just had a letter complaining that Siemens have been unable to effect entry to our property to check our gas meter and making vaguely threatening noises about applying to the court for a warrant. This is nonsense, as as far as I’m aware they haven’t made any attempt to look at the meter. When I rang them they couldn’t change their unilaterally arranged visit because their system was down. I think I shall apply to the court for a warrant to ensure that I have access to their system. Or I may ring back later.

Oddly, I don't have a usable picture of Dot's Uncle Frank, who died this week, but this is Oliver and Jessie during our visit there last week. Oliver is sitting in Frank's chair.

Sadly, we have lost a family member over Christmas: Dot’s Uncle Frank, who has been suffering from Alzheimer’s for years, died of pneumonia at Wroxham late on Wednesday. I had to travel to Coventry with Phil to take Andrew back on the Thursday, but Dot went out in the evening to spend some time with her aunt, and we’re visiting her tomorrow afternoon.

The journey to Coventry went smoothly enough, though the weather was indifferent: after leaving Andrew we stopped for a meal at the usual Chef on the way back. While he was with us in Norwich we took him to buy some new clothes (mainly underwear), and we made the customary trips to Dunston Common and the Rosary  – where David, Dot, Oliver, Amy and I had put some flowers on Dad and Mum’s grave earlier. I also took him on a drive to Loddon, Hardley, Langley, Claxton, Rockland, Bramerton and Wood’s End, where the skies were clear and the place was deserted. Beautiful sunset seen from Hardley, where we also visited a very cold church. Andrew himself was OK much of the time, but finds it difficult to deal with change in routine, so in future we may more often visit him in Coventry and take him out for drives, rather than transplant him to Norwich. He has few remaining acquaintances here.

I should mention that during his visit Phil brought Sam and Lucy round, and Sam gave me a copy of his new book, It was the tree’s fault – a collection of monologues.

Last night Dot and I ventured out into the rain to go to the cinema, where we saw the new version of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was riveting, though disturbingly violent in places. Daniel Craig and his co-star Rooney Mara – in fact, all the cast – were sharp and compelling.

Dot is still suffering from problems with dizziness – a particularly bad bout while washing her hair this morning – and will have to go back to the doctor. Happily, she is not feeling ill in between the bouts, which are not frequent.