Tag Archives: football

4 April 2009

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Another picture from the Grapevine exhibition, this time showing members of the Care family in the vicinity of the refreshments. Drummer Simeon and student Naomi are standing on Lucy’s right: Jonathan is at back right, talking to medieval role-player Jo Berry, from the Paston Heritage Society. Lucy is talking to Joan Murray, one of the InPrint artists, whose husband John is partially obscured by a pillar. We’ve known Jonathan and Lucy since before they were married, 30 years ago. Preparations are now being made for the Wednesday night Grapevine session next week, which seems promising.

I finished my second lot of antibiotics yesterday, and I guess I feel better, though certainly not 100 per cent. Just walked up to Carrow Road to buy tickets for the Easter Monday match against Watford, when David and I will be taking Oliver. Tickets went on sale today at 9am; I turned up at 11am to find only the back row and about four other individual seats unsold. We are in the back row: the nice lady has sat us as far away from the visiting supporters as possible “as we have a child with us”. Felt pretty tired when I got back, but it’s a very pleasant day, and Colin is here doing some stuff in the garden involving shingle. He’s created a very nice space under the kitchen window.

On Thursday night it became obvious that water was seeping out of one of our drain covers. After a bit of hesitation, I rang the insurers’ emergency helpline, and within half an hour a guy was at the door. We had a lot of trouble getting the drain cover off (not the leaking one – the next one down: it takes a professional to know these things), and before we did we tried next door (out) and Phyllis, whose drain we decided was not connected to ours. When we eventually got the cover off, there was an obvious blockage, which the guy cleared, and a rather unholy mess, mainly liquid, tumbled through at high speed. Something very satisfying about removing a blockage. I can think of somewhere else an improved flow would be welcome.

Julia and Allan came round last night. Dot did a very time-consuming but delicious mousaka, which was appreciated by all. I have reorganised my website so that the beginnning of new articles will appear on the front page, and the updating should be obvious. Also added another article and changed the bottom of the front page to include a selection of quotes, which I will also change regularly. Quite pleased with it.

16 March 2009

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After a quiet week, a full weekend. David and the children came up, and David and I took Oliver to see Norwich City play Plymouth at Carrow Road – his first professional football match. Happily City won 1-0, and Oliver joined in all the excitement. He also showed good staying power. I think he enjoyed the whole experience. He seemed to like being part of the crowd walking home as well. The weather was quite good, though there was a chilly wind. While we were at the match Dot took Amy into the city with Anne, and they bought her a new dress. She seemed to have a great time.

Yesterday was another nice day, and we went to Winterton, where we had a picnic in the car park before venturing into the dunes. The children had a wonderful time (so did we) tracking each other and ambushing. It’s a real favourite place with them. Got some nice pictures, one or two of which will appear here in due course. Today’s picture is of Oliver in his Canary kit, back from the match. After the dunes, Dot got the children in the garden, playing farms, while I watched a bit of rugby and David had a rest while listening to Spurs beat Aston Villa 2-0 (away). Oliver and Amy both got into the garden experience and in fact really exhausted themselves by supper time. Oliver could barely make it into the car for the trip home after their bath and story.

Today – another sunny day – we were up early and Dot is now on her way to Garboldisham for a church school inspection. I am waiting for the gas man to come and service our system. He’s scheduled to turn up between 8am and 1pm, so will probably arrive at about 12.55, if we’re lucky. In preparation , I had to take a surprising amount of stuff out of the drying room. Had no idea there was so much in there.

23 April 2008

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The theme continues. This is the all-conquering, or “quite good”, Surrey Chapel squad of which my son and brother were both members. Son David is in the front row, second from the right, and brother Phil is far right on the back row with the, ahem, beard. Again the time must have been around 1990. The team – indeed the entire church league – had its roots in a radical twice-yearly game I helped organise in the early 60s with my friend David Green. We played Park Church, whose team contained my uncle and two cousins. After I moved to London in 1966, the Easter Monday and Boxing Day games developed into a proper league with teams containing almost no relations at all, but all this came too late for me, and I never played as much football as I would have liked. And in case you were wondering how radical it was, this all stemmed from a time and place where sport was regarded as a not sufficiently spiritual activity. David Green is now a deacon, so it must have been all right.

Back to my medical condition: I’m still feeling rather divorced from reality and generally fuzzy, as if my head hasn’t been tuned in properly. I slept quite well last night, and the pain in my head has gone, but I still have a clogged-up feeling and a bit of a cough, as well as dryness in the mouth. Just not really connecting, somehow. A generally achy feeling.

I’m not looking for sympathy. Well, maybe a little. My grandson sent me a lovely card and Dot is being very solicitous and lovely. I’ve just walked up to the post office to post some letters and got the feeling people were looking at me rather nervously, as if I was ill or something. I realised it was the first time I’d been out of the house for a week.

22 April 2008

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Still on the football theme, this is a five-a-side team made up of members of the Eastern Counties Newspapers trainee course in spring 1991. This would probably have been taken in May or June. I am on the left, of course, and continuing left to right we have Tim Miller, Darren Kemp, Robert Liddle, Mike Randall and Siobhan Hand. In the background at the right is my son David, then about 19, who played as a guest (against the regular reporters, I think). No idea what the score was, but I think we did reasonably well. In case anyone is wondering, I was teaching on the course: local and central government and techniques of journalism. David Paull ran the course and was law lecturer: Frances Burrows taught shorthand. We’re all now retired, of course. Except the trainees. And David.

Since my last entry here I have been feeling pretty awful, with a bad upper respiratory tract infection apparently stemming from the biopsy. I suspect this is the sort of thing doctors are not interested in because it isn’t life-threatening, but It makes you feel so wretched that having prostate cancer seems like a minor issue (at the time). A combination of high temperature, inflammation in your breathing tubes and coughing means you can’t get comfortable enough to sleep or even relax. It really is a nightmare, and what makes it worse is that you think it’s getting a bit better and then it gets worse again.

So I don’t know whether I’m actually over the worst or if I’m just well enough for now to write this. I feel very, very tired, but the pain in my head has eased off. I was given Ciprofloxacin (an antibiotic) in case I got an infection, but to say I was unimpressed by it is a major understatement. I only started to feel a bit better when I stopped taking it. Of course if I hadn’t taken it I might have died, but these things are relative.

We have cancelled our break in York, which was due to start tomorrow. I don’t think we’ll be charged for the hotel, and the theatre is very kindly refunding the tickets (though they have no need to), so when it is all sorted out, I think it will just cost us the £10 rail tickets cancellation fee. Very disappointing, though, especially as the weather is no nice at the moment. Makes you want to go out – and Dot has just walked to the shops – but I daren’t go far in case of the other side-effect of this whole mess: having to rush to the loo.

Seems ridiculous to have gone through all this when I was fine to start with. Now they want Dot to take cholesterol pills because she has a high count on a recent test. Both she and I are against it: she’s already taking blood pressure pills for no good reason (and is told she can’t come off them), so why add more pointless medication when she feels fine? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I wish I’d said that.

27 February 2008

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Three in a row and a bonus point. My two grandchildren, Oliver and Amy, with their friend Alastair, all entranced by a Wii computer game. We spent a weekend in Caddington, and Alastair came round on the Sunday, bringing with him his sister Lydia, and his parents Phil and Jane. Quite a while since we’d seen them: I used to work with Phil’s father David on The Christian newspaper in London in the mid-60s.

And another similar relationship: last night Dot and I went to the Maddermarket again to see a play which included Sam, the son of Nigel, my best friend at university, also in the mid-60s. Sam is clearly an actor of some promise, and the play – The Musicians – was very well done. Sam and his mum Heather came back for coffee afterwards.

On Monday the vicar came round for tea, and we had a chat about life, the universe and anything. The church – or to give it its alias, the Norwich Christian Meditation Centre – will soon be having a website, and I shall probably be having some oversight of it, which could be interesting. In the evening I scored what must be one of the luckiest wins of my chess career, having been dead lost for most of the game. My opponent panicked in time trouble and let me mate him. The team captain, who had stepped out briefly, couldn’t believe I had won, and I was of much the same view. It was rather like a football match in which one team is stuck in its own penalty area for 89 minutes, then breaks upfield, the ball hits someone and ends in the opposing team’s net. Well, maybe not quite that bad. I did make a couple of quite nice moves, but it should have been all over by then.

Speaking of football, Spurs managed to win a cup at last – the Carling Cup, beating Chelsea 2-1 on Sunday. David, Phil and I were sneakily listening on radio for much of the match.

Yesterday I spent 2-3 hours with Annette, talking about our Paston workshop, and got some interesting ideas together. I will make a proper note of them when I’ve finished this and send them off to Lucy, via Annette. Had lunch there after Annette and I had picked up some eggs from a roadside stall. Showed Mike how to put images on the InPrint website. Dot meanwhile was checking out places we could have our ruby wedding anniversary party in August, and it seems likely to be Dunston Hall. We had a big party for relatives a couple of years ago: this will be for friends (with the odd exception).

Today – bright though chilly – J is with us again, having visited her husband in hospital. They’re beginning the painful process of working out where he will live and who will pay for it. There’s a chance it will be the NHS, but you can never be totally sure. It’s now after lunch, J and Dot are in the city, and I’m waiting for the insurance company to ring back about the dispute we’re engaged in about whether I cancelled my policy last year ot not. I’ve supplied paperwork, but they seem reluctant to admit they’re wrong. It’s important because of the no claims bonus issue. Over £400 hangs on it.

There was an earthquake last night. It woke and frightened Dot, and she woke me up. A reasonably large quake for England (around 5 on the Richter scale and centred in Market Rasen, Lincolnshire), but no-one injured and no damage in our area. Very little damage elsewhere. Annoyingly I couldn’t get back to sleep properly afterwards – thinking about that insurance thing – and after lying awake for ages, I got up at 5.20 and watched TV for the next two and a half hours – stuff I’d recorded, not the rubbish you normally get on in the middle of the night. Now, of course, I’m very tired. Why can’t you fall asleep in front of the TV when you actually want to?