And this was the second week in the year we didn’t go to the cinema. Nothing really calling to us at the moment. But we did watch North by Northwest on television this evening by way of recovering from Norwich losing 3-0 at Swansea and England being ejected from the 20-20 cricket world cup.
Lovely warm day today. Bought some flowers and took them up to the Rosary while Dot was going through the torment of listening to the Norwich match. It’s Mothers’ Day tomorrow. I slipped a couple of little roses on to my grandparents’ grave as well. It’s looking neglected.
Not a very busy week. I managed to get down to my last blood pressure pills and had to beg some emergency ones from the chemist. Also had some interesting laser work done by Ross on one of my upper teeth to get rid of some minor problem at gum level. Bit uncomfortable, but not too bad. Health continues to be up and down. Today I’ve felt tight round the abdomen and odd altogether. So hard to pin down exactly what’s wrong, but something is definitely not right.
On Wednesday went to the last performance of Whistle, by Martin Figura, at the Arts Centre. The evening started with a 20-minute warm-up by Russell Turner (The Vodka Diaries), which was quite entertaining, though not something one would want one’s grandchildren to witness. This was followed incredibly by a 20-minute interval, which probably shows that poetry audiences are very thirsty. Martin Figura himself was good – more monologue than poetry, but he did justice to the story, during which his father kills his mother. This did actually happen, which just goes to show.
Yesterday I got a call from a woman who wanted to use my poem Some Kind of Lamb in the Wymondham Abbey magazine. She was very complimentary about the poem and said that several of her friends had it pinned up. That is the kind of thing that makes writing poetry worthwhile. That and the writing itself.
I have also written a short piece on Betjeman and Clare for the Parish Pump website, at the request of Anne Coomes. And at last I’ve put together five of my songs with chords for the next Seagull session. Dot and I practised some of them tonight. Sounded good.
Sunny and relatively mild the last few days. Went to the doctor yesterday and got some antibiotics, but didn’t feel I’d really explained the problem properly. I’m having a blood test on Friday, so that should reveal anything underlying. I get tired very easily.
Before going to the doctor’s I drove Dot to a meeting at Thorpe High School, and she walked from there to pick me up from surgery, arriving only an hour after my appointment but while I was in with the doctor. I had been in the waiting room for almost an hour, which may be a record. After lunch we walked into the city, and she got her feet looked at while I paid in some church cheques at the TSB. Dot then spent some time looking round the shops while I returned home and did some work.
Part of the work was preparing a financial report for the DCC last night. That was well received, but they are easily pleased, I’m happy to say. While waiting for the doctor I wrote a couple of poems, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.
Dot and I went to a poetry conversation at the Playhouse on Friday, organised by the UEA. Adrian Ward and two people from the Seagull were there. There was some interesting stuff, but as usual with such things, one or two people dominated and the talk kept going off at a tangent (“things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” – W B Yeats).
On Saturday, after getting some groceries for Joy and Phil because the latter is ill in bed, we drove to North Walsham for a visit to the cemetery – followed more importantly by a meal with Jessie, attended also by Roger and Liz. Ate far too much, of course, but a very pleasant time. Jessie is having quite a lot of problems with her eyes, probably as a result of an allergy to her most recent drops.
On Sunday the vicar made an appearance, following his recent excursion to Aspen, Colorado, but the congregation was ushered out rather sharpish to make way for a baptism at 1pm, which seemed kind of odd. In the afternoon Dot and I went up to the Rosary with flowers for Mum and Dad’s grave, followed by a glance at a house on Thorpe Road that had caught Dot’s attention.
We have extracted Dot’s car from the garage, though she collided with one side of it in the process. Now it is in a holding pattern by the roadside, because the replacement people are coming on Thursday with two big vans and need the space. Hence the arrangement mentioned in paragraph two.
Norwich City eventually lost 7-0, but we don’t need to dwell on that. After all, Manchester City put five past a Champions League team a few days later. Just hope we do a bit better against West Ham on Saturday – Dot and I have tickets.
The weather has been a bit mixed, and we’ve reached that stage in the autumn when the ground never seems to get dry. The last two days have been wet and lethargic, but today looks brighter. I hope to go and see Geoff this afternoon, but at the moment I’m waiting for the piano tuner and his football commentary. Dot is on her way to a school at Bradwell after Mary next door came round for a few signatures. She is applying for a new job. Ex-head teachers rank way above ex-journalists and poets on the respectability scale.
Rather disappointingly, I failed to register in the winners’ list at the Seagull poetry competition, but Rob Knee was joint first (and had another commended). He and Penny were at the NRO yesterday for a talk by Anthony Smith on how Fastolf got on in 1450 (I paraphrase). A dense but interesting 50 minutes, especially after they got the microphone working. I wrote a piece for my website based on it.
Penny’s mother has just died, and I was able to commiserate. This meant, however, that I missed chatting with Judy, who was also there.
Because of the damp weather I drove to the NRO, thus failing at the second fence in my bid to walk to all of the talks. The tanka book is now finished, and I have only to establish some sort of meaningful dialogue with the publisher. However, Joy is in a bad state again. We need to get it published for her.
Still in the middle of “discussions” with UEA over the PHS intern who claims to have done over 80 hours’ work but has produced very little. Mistakes on all sides, I think. He should have been much more closely monitored.
Dropped in at the Forum on Monday to look at a display of Holocaust poetry that featured a translation by Kristine – oddly, from English into German. Adjacent to the small exhibition was a circular table, around which a number of earnest middle-aged academic-looking people were holding a discussion group. Each had a pot of tea. I wrote a poem about it called The Holocaust Discussion Group.
In the evening we had a meal at Prezzo with Angela and Rodney, followed by coffee at home. The meal was courtesy of Auntie Ethel, whose house is now cleared out and all-but forgotten. She herself seems physically well and enjoying the home.
I have now booked the hotel for Florida and the seating for all the flights. But I haven’t managed to persuade Coventry City Council to tell me how much they’re paying towards Andrew’s accommodation. It will be nice when that’s sorted.
On Tuesday we had nine for our regular Group, and we celebrated November 5th with sparklers in the garden afterwards. The piano tuner seems to be getting on well.
The speed of light – and therefore time – increases again. I don’t care what anyone says: I’m from Yorkshire. Well, no, I’m not, but nevertheless time does seem to be hurtling past, and I don’t seem to be achieving an awful lot. Certainly not on Tuesday, when the Broadband was down for several hours. As we all know, when Broadband is down it’s like a newspaper strike. Nothing happens.
It was also the day the accountant came, and we spent some time trying to open one of Barbara’s files, which was in some outlandish open source software, and compressed to boot. Gave up in the end, because we couldn’t access the internet to find out how it might be opened. Went back to the pigeon.
Last Saturday we went to a concert at St Augustine’s, and on the way discovered that it was part of the Magdalen/St Augustine’s Festival, which aspires to be a kind of mini-Notting Hall. The concert was in three parts, of which we saw the first two – an organ recital, which was strangely dampened and attended by very few people; and some music from a violin, a cello and an organist who doubled as an amazing counter-tenor. More people at that one, and some of it was very good. But I think a few songs from Far Cry would not have been out of place.
On that theme, I have today printed out 24 song booklets for church, each of them containing 20 of my songs (words only). I should be able to produce music versions: I can write music, but I can’t think of any way to do it that would be useful. Lack of imagination and a touch of laziness thwart most things.
I have also been judging the Two Valleys Poetry Competition for the second year running. At first the entries seemed unexceptional, but on closer examination there are a number of pretty good ones, and it’s been hard to make a final choice.
Much of the rest of the time has been spent on being church treasurer, including the usual trip into the city yesterday to pay in cheques. This occurred after a lunchtime visit by the Higbees, before they rushed down to Bedford to babysit their granddaughter, Arianna. Dot did a rather nice curry, following up her triumph the previous night of butternut squash and potato soup for the Tuesday Group. The Higbees also bought a patio cleaner for Dot to try out, and she got so enthusiastic that she did the whole of the back garden area while I went into the city. Effective but dirty, rather like the Roses road train.
Good food day on Sunday. We started with lunch at church – soup and rolls left over from the aforementioned festival – and proceeded to North Walsham for mince pies at Jessie’s. She makes a mean mince pie. Home through pouring rain and up to Loch Fyne for an evening meal, purely to obtain a free bottle of wine for which we had a voucher. Loch Fyne meals are good, though on this occasion service was very slow. But maybe spending £50 to get a free bottle if wine is not the most economical thing to do.
Have managed to reach Friday in a rather stressful week. The roof has been fixed temporarily, and the ceiling has a tasteful white sheet covering the holes and the damp section. It stayed up at the second attempt. The second surveyor (for the builders) said the asbestos positive meant the whole ceiling would have to be removed and reinstated, which would involve moving all the furniture out and making good afterwards. Haven’t heard the insurance company’s reaction to this, but it leaves us still in limbo, which I hate. I am not good at waiting.
Meanwhile Dot has finished the wall-painting, and I have painted the trapdoor to the loft, because I am taller. Well, to be more accurate, I have painted it once, and I am about to paint it again. Dot is now immersed in improving the look of the garden, and keeps arriving home with a car full of plants. Keep catching bits of the Olympics, but not always the right bits. Happily the BBC website is quite good on videos of bits you miss. I am as pro-Team GB as anyone, but I did rather enjoy those South African rowers who came from miles back to snatch the gold.
Two further sources of stress: intermittent Broadband connection at the beginning of the week for no apparent reason; and the unexpected difficulty of finding transport for church members without cars who want to go on a boat trip to St Benet’s Abbey on Sunday for the afternoon service. This would have been difficult enough anyway, but Dot and I are taking Phil and going on to Lowestoft afterwards for our third Seagull gig, so couldn’t take anyone. One of our members with a car didn’t know if she was going until Thursday, another (understandably) didn’t want to come into the city to collect people, and the two people at St Luke’s who might have helped were unreachable by phone or email. Howard could borrow a people carrier but couldn’t drive it because he had no insurance. Aargh! In the end I gatecrashed the Vicarage and spoke to Heather, with the result that Nicholas is going to drive the people carrier.
Our church is full of people who can’t drive or don’t have a car, or both. On Thursday Ian asked me to pick him up from the City College midway through the evening, which I did, of course.
Tuesday was kind of a highlight, because I had tea with Lord and Lady Walpole at Mannington Hall. Also present were Lucy, Jo and John, and we were discussing the Paston event at the Hall in October (weekend of 27–28). As Chronicle, the four of us – Caroline, Rob, Kay and I – are going to do two half-hour slots, but we will have to rework The Heroine of Hungate to introduce a Mannington connection. This is not quite as obscure as I thought it was (there is a 15th century marriage), but it will take a bit of working out. Afterwards Jo and John paid for lunch for Lucy and myself (and them) at the Saracen’s Head. Very impressive spot for lunch. Excellent food. Probably the fist gooseberry compote with mackerel I have ever had.
In the evening Tuesday Group was at the Archers, and another excellent repast – this time sausages and mashed potatoes – was followed by a very tasty video by Rob Bell. This was almost matched culturally on Thursday by a second attempt at a poetry group at the Narthex at St John’s Roman Catholic Cathedral, led by Hilary Mellon. Ten of us present, and it worked much better than the one on Betjeman. We looked closely at three of six Larkin poems that he had read out electronically and without hiccoughs at the start. Found myself liking his work a lot, though not his rather dour philosophy.
Have just made a list of areas for which I am responsible, in an attempt to work out why I never have time to do anything. I am up to 24 at the moment.
Oliver with Canary-coloured bow tie, created at Bewilderwood
Dot is still not feeling great, but her coughing seems to be subsiding a smidgeon: she went to the doctor on Tuesday, and he said it was a virus and could linger on indefinitely, which is encouraging. However, he did tell her that her potential cyst had just about vanished, and she no longer needed it cut out. So that’s all good, as they would say on Twenty Twelve. In fact Dot is now out with Anne in the city. There has been plenty of rain in the last two days, but it’s sunny at the moment.
I cancelled Andrew’s visit completely after debating whether to go over and take him our for a day instead; the weather forecast was horrible, and I wasn’t feeling brilliant. I’m much better now and have managed to write the narration for our Paston event – at least, the first draft thereof. Caroline was also ill, so Rob and I met on Tuesday and allocated a few tasks. He is is researching publicity.
Otherwise it’s been a quiet week. We had our hair cut, and I’ve been to the supermarket and into the city to pay in some cheques while Dot has rested, by which I mean done extensive sprucing-up work in the house. I wrote a rather bad sonnet for the poetry group, but it wasn’t as bad as one or two other things that were presented to us. NG and TN, however, made a good job of theirs. Especially NG, for whom I have a growing admiration. Meanwhile I have had a poem published on the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears, which is nice. The fact, not the poem.
The computer is going well. David did a trick with Dropbox which got my capacity down to nearly 80%, so that’s now working at no further cost. I am toying with the idea of deleting all the pictures in my Pictures file to reduce it even further. After all, they’re just duplicates of ones in iPhoto which I’ve exported for various reasons.
I took some old books up to the Christian Resource Centre and also left them a box of my poetry books, which I said they could sell for whatever price they liked. I still have three boxes!
I have discovered, thanks to Genes Reunited, that the name Lenton is a very early English locational surname, and derives from the places called Lenton, one in Lincolnshire and the other in Nottinghamshire. The former is recorded as “Lavintone” in the Domesday Book of 1086 and means “Leofa’s village”, derived from the Olde English pre– 7th Century personal name “Leofa”, meaning “dear, or beloved” and “tun”, a settlement or farm.
John Leynton (1455 – 1505) represented the Borough of Cambridge in the Parliaments of 1489 – 1490 and 1491 – 1492 during the reign of King Henry V11. He was the first Recorder of Cambridge in 1494. Rather pleased to discover that in 1584 Arms were granted to the Lentons of Aldwinkle in Northants (where I visited the church a few years ago). These have the blazon of a silver field, a bend between two gold dolphins embowed.
First stages of the top layer go down – QPR fan Mark in the background
Day Five, and Mark is downstairs again, finishing off the kitchen. He laid most of the kitchen and hall floor yesterday, and I have to say it looks pretty good. Today he’s doing the edges, then the bit under the stairs; after which, he’ll start on the study. He assures me he will definitely finish on Monday. We’ve established he’s a QPR supporter who used to live in Acton, where I worked between 1969 and 1972 on the Acton Gazette.
The whole floor process is painstaking. After laying marine ply with great precision, he covered the floor with some wet sticky stuff which had to be left to dry, then planed down to be even flatter than it looked already. Then a section of the floor was glued, and the strips of Spacia laid – again very, very precisely, starting with a long strip down the centre.
Yesterday I visited the surgery to get a blood pressure monitor attached to me by Mrs Minter (making it a Minter monitor). She said her parents knew the people who built our house before emigrating to Australia. Apparently their name was Nash. Doesn’t ring a bell, but the facts fitted. The blood pressure monitor is an extremely irritating device which reminds me of what mobile phones used to look like (and weigh like) before they became usable. Every half hour it beeps and then compresses my arm to get a reading. Frequently it doesn’t work, so it repeats the process. At night it doesn’t beep but does do the rest every two hours. I wasn’t aware of the compression, but it must have woken me around 6am, and I didn’t get back to sleep after that. Pretty annoying, and it’s also uncomfortable and makes doing certain things difficult. I estimate it’s put my blood pressure up about 30% which, considering I was told it was very high when Mrs Minter took it at the surgery, has probably resulted in an increase of about 40% over the last 24 hours. I reckon the only way you can get an accurate blood pressure reading is to take it without the victim knowing. I’m doomed.
Amid all the beeping and compressing I went to the inaugural meeting of the St Augustine’s Poetry Group last night, while Dot attended Developing Consciousness, which I guess is roughly the same thing without the rhythm. There were three of us at the poetry group: Stuart (whose baby it is), Nic Golding and myself. Surprisingly, it went quite well. Stuart and I read a few poems; Nic hadn’t brought any because of “printer problems”. We’re meeting again next month.
We left Norwich just after 11am on Friday, and despite a blockage on the A146 that we avoided by driving down country lanes, we arrived at the Ferini Gallery in Lowestoft in good time for the Arts and Eats session. Ian Fosten eventually put in an appearance, and Dot and I helped with some food-and-furniture-fetching from his house, taking the opportunity to say hello to his wife Bridget. Lovely weather: quite warm in a cold sort of way.
The session went well. I gave Lynn Mummery a bit of encouragement, and Ian didn’t need any, providing about as many poems as Lynn and myself put together. Good response generally. Unfortunately Dot and I had to rush away at the end to get on the road to Nottingham – a four-hour journey. That went reasonably well, largely because Dave E warned us of a huge delay on the M1. As a result we went up the A1 and into Nottingham from the east.
Evening meal with Evetts at an Italian restaurant in Stapleford. Julia coping with ankle injury very well. Left for Buxton after leisurely breakfast on Saturday, and after going wrong in Derby got on to the right road and went via the A38 to the A6. On Dave’s advice stopped at Monsal Head for a snack and a look at the stunning view (as advertised). As we approached Buxton we could see snow on the hills, and in town there was even snow on the streets. Went badly wrong on entering town (after getting petrol at Morrisons) and spent some time orienting ourselves before finding the hotel. Excellent meal after stroll into town to find station.
On Saturday we climbed through Buxton Country Park to Grin Low. Lots of snow at the top. Misty outlook: very atmospheric. On return had guided tour of Poole’s Cavern, which was impressive. Then back to the hotel to change (walk = just under five miles) and then drive to see Gareth near Belper. Drive not much fun – well over an hour, or more than an hour longer than Adrian’s estimate of 10 minutes. Lovely to see Gareth, Nicky, Grace and Max. House very impressive. Easier drive back. Another superb meal in hotel. Bad night, though.
Much nicer day on Monday: sunny and still. Through lack of adequate prep, drove to Whaley Bridge then back along Taxal Ridge, stopping at Windgather Rocks, which we climbed on to. Then down to Goyt Valley, from where we walked up past Errwood Hall ruins to Foxley Edge (diversion from main route). Afterwards drove along Goyt Valley – icy roads – and up to near Cat and Fiddle, then back to hotel, where we relaxed in room awaiting arrival of Barbara.
She arrived about 30 minutes late after missing her intended connection at Stockport. Another good meal at the hotel ensued, and I collapsed afterwards and went to sleep fully clothed, then again in pyjamas. Had quite a good night this time, and enjoyed another full English in the company of the waitress who recognised us from previous years. Left for Ilkley shortly before 11am: first part of journey was horrendous, along the A6 with numerous delays until we hit the M60 after a couple of attempts. Then much better, though even on the motorway the ubiquitous speed cameras made life difficult (long stretches where lights were being upgraded and a speed limit of 50 was enforced by average speed cameras).
Then another slow stretch round the outskirts of Bradford and along the A65 to Ilkley, which is a very pleasant town and a vast improvement on anything we had encountered on the journey. Arrived about 1pm and had lunch in a lovely little cafe run by an Italian. Then walked up to Information centre and dropped in at a clothes shop where I bought laces for my shoes and some thermal underwear. Eventually dropped Barbara and Dot off at school just after 3pm, which left me two and a half hours in which to amuse myself.
Ice on a pool at the summit of the Cow and Calf Rocks, near Ilkley
Started by going up to the cow and calf rocks and climbing up them (well, not the calf, obviously). Bitterly cold, so didn’t hang about, except to take a few photos. Then drove further up into the moor before returning to town. Called in at museum that I had looked up on the web, but it was half closed – the art gallery half – which was disappointing. Returned to original cafe and had a cup of tea and a muffin, then read a while before getting some fuel and returning to the school. I was on time, but Dot and Barbara did not emerge until 30 minutes later, by which time I was getting a mite chilly.
Set off for home about 6.30pm, and again the first part of the 230-mile journey was tiresome – very slow and visibility bad because of our faulty lights. After we hit the A1, however it was very straightforward: we drove all the way down to Huntingdon and then down the A14 as far as the Cambridge services, where we got a little food and Dot took over the driving. Home without further incidents. Weather conditions good, though cold.
Cold again today. I made a small attempt at catching up, then had to go out to North Walsham for a Paston session in the library, Discovered the librarian, Sue Lawrence, was the daughter of Mrs Hicks, mayor of Little London in my EDP column and a good friend of Mrs Cousens. She seemed pleased to see me. Jo and Rob also there for another researching local history session with Richard Hoggett. Refuelled the car in Norwich afterwards, refilled the screenwashers and watched a bit of TV. Now it’s started to snow, and more is forecast.
Missed the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival this year, but wrote a poem over the weekend:
EXIT GRANDCHILDREN, STAGE LEFT
Empty dens in the garden,
bear on the stairs
The speed of darkness has been exceeded
and candles lie where they have fallen
under the newly cut hedge
The cars and bricks have been returned
to the garage, and the beds
remade, redirected, resolved
The prince and princess have gone,
heading for hallowe’en
and we are in winter already
But we all remember
that trick of the city night:
lights like puppets dancing
strange circles across the sky
magic, like a roundabout,
reflecting, returning
Caught glimpses of fireworks as I drove to North Walsham on Saturday to pick up some copies of Another Country, the Paston poetry book that contains five of my poems and was designed by David. In a totally unbiased sort of way I can say that it looks very good. It will be launched next Monday at the Dragon Hall private view.
North Walsham again on Sunday to see Jessie for tea and mince pies after a quickish visit to a packed Sainsburys to buy flowers for the cemetery. Not very nice weather: intermittent drizzle. Earlier I had preached at St Augustine’s and we had a bring-and-share lunch which turned out to be better than I had anticipated at the point when I realised that about 50 per cent of it was couscous. Actually the version of couscous that included meat was quite pleasant, and there were rolls and cheese, which can never be a bad thing.
On Saturday morning I paid a brief visit to the church hall for the reinstatement of the window and discovered the Rainbows in situ, which of course meant I had tracked down Cheryl, our elusive cleaner. She has promised to send me a list of people hiring the all, but I’m not holding my breath. I also noticed that our new sign contains a mis-spelling of the word “spiritual” (sprirtual, no less), which is pretty annoying, especially considering that the person who provided the PDF for the sign people is perfectly capable of spelling “spiritual”. As he is now in Palestine, I can’t hit him. Just as well, probably.
What a lovely day! A bright, crisp blue sky, it’s Amy’s seventh birthday, I’ve hung out the washing and Another Country is complete. David sent me the final PDF this morning, and I have burned it on to a CD ready for Rob to pick up tomorrow. Nice to meet a deadline – thanks to David, who has really made the book look good. We shall have to make him an honorary Paston trustee…
The temperature has certainly dropped, but when the sun it shining it’s hardly noticeable. All right, it is noticeable, but not objectionable. Quite marked in the evenings, though, and we’ve been out the last three evenings. On Monday we went to the Cathedral to hear a lecture by Cambridge Professor Colin Humphreys, who has done some in-depth research on the events of Easter week, resolving apparent discrepancies in the Gospels. Fascinating stuff: he has established that the Last Supper was on the Wednesday and the Crucifixion on the Friday, with much of the Thursday taken up with the trial. The actual date of the Crucifixion was April 3, AD 33 – at 9am. None of this may seem to matter much, but it is encouraging to see that apparent discrepancies can be resolved if you accept the rather obvious fact that people writing at the time knew more about how things worked at the time than we do. A key factor in this is that different calendars were in use, for example. Prof Humphreys is a scientist, and he was assisted in his work by an astro-physicist, among others. His book is called The Mystery of the Last Supper.
The lecture was very good, but even more entertaining were the attempts made beforehand to get the technology working. At one stage nine cathedral clergy and lay people were clustered round, trying to make a laptop communicate with a projector. It proved beyond them until a young lad in jeans came forward and solved it almost instantly. He should get a cathedral post – a canon, perhaps.
On the Tuesday our group met at the Archers’ house on the other side of the city. We gave Ian a lift, and I walked up to his house (about a mile) to give myself some exercise. Invigorating. David cooked jacket potatoes, Vick supplied sublime pears in cider, and Bridget took the evening off at the theatre with David Essex. Some people have no idea…
Last night we were at the Cathedral again – this time in the lovely Westron Room at the Hostry – to hear poet Anthony Thwaite speak about the King James version with special relevance to poetry. Some interesting stuff, much of it autobiographical, but he rather marred his argument by comparing the KJV with the New English Bible all the time and not mentioning (till questions) the NIV, which is a far better modern translation. The NEB, in fact, is pretty awful, and the Dean, who was in the audience, pointed out afterwards that it was not used in the Cathedral at all. The Dean also made some good points about the importance of using language that was familiar to the audience. I have the feeling that my mother or one of her friends knew Mr Thwaite some time in the past (he is 81), but I didn’t pursue it.
