Tag Archives: bewilderwood

Dolphins on a silver field

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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.

Oliver would be pleased. He likes dolphins.

Bewilderwood comes up trumps again

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Led by Amy, the children cross the rope bridge from the centre of the maze

Well into a wintry April, and this is being unexpectedly written on a new iMac, which I bought from the Apple store in Chapelfield, with a little help from David and Phil Coomes, on Good Friday. The idea is that I can now upgrade to iCloud, but this hasn’t happened yet, despite David taking some considerable time on his last day here pushing files across. We still have to do something about iWeb, which will no longer be supported. However, I have to say the computer itself is a delight. Looks good, feels good, so it must be good. And only £999. Plus Applecare, of course. I am seeing if I can manage without Word and Excel, but if not, I can get it from Amazon, the Apple guy pointed out helpfully.

This came at the end of a week with David, Oliver and Amy, who arrived on the Monday – a week too late for the warm weather. But despite a day of continuous rain on the Wednesday, we still had a good time, including a Maundy Thursday visit to Bewilderwood, which continues to delight. We were accompanied as last year by the Coomes family, with all four children getting on really well together. They stayed at the Premier Inn on Duke Street – not the ideal spot, but apparently a lot cheaper then the Nelson – and came to us for all their meals except breakfast.

Oliver was not too well after the first day or two, but manfully kept going, though David had a touch of whatever it was, and so did Dot and I. As I write, she is still coughing: she hasn’t been able to sleep well, and this lunchtime she had quite a frightening coughing fit provoked by eating something that irritated her throat. She didn’t come to church yesterday, but recovered sufficiently to get to the traditional Red Lion lunch with Phil and his family, including both sons, their wives, and the German contingent. Had quite a long chat with Joe (Wizemann), and the meal was good, though too large as always. Very pleasant time.

As a result of Dot’s illness, and the fact that I wasn’t feeling good myself, I rang Ian Fosten and excused myself from what was apparently an oversubscribed Seagull gig. Watched too much TV instead. But the morning service was enjoyable: I led it as usual, and John Easton preached and did Communion. Quite a good number in the congregation too.

Before the children left on Friday afternoon we had a game of football on Mousehold that either ended in a 4-4 draw, 3-1 to us or 6-5 to them, depending on who you asked. David had a procedure at hospital on the Saturday, but seems to be recovering well. Nothing to with the football.

Bears walking off the shelves

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One of the two award-winning dens, with its creators

Delightful week, despite the chill wind for much of it. Son and grandchildren visited, and Philip and Jane and their two children camped nearby in the Premier Inn; we spent most of the time together, and I even missed an Archant agm, I was having so much fun.

Our family arrived on Monday. I was due to play chess against Yosif in the evening, but typically he didn’t show up, and I returned for a quiet evening. On Tuesday the Coomes arrived, and we organised lunch and supper for nine. In the afternoon most of us walked into the city by way of the Cathedral Close (leaving Dot fixing the evening food) and then went to the Museum, followed by the Norwich City shop, where I bought a Canaries bag for Oliver and two teddy bears for Amy – one pink and one a traditional yellow. Apparently the NCFC teddy bears are walking off the shelves in the current climate of optimism. As I write City are 2-1 up against Nottingham Forest, being watched by Dot, who got a free ticket from the Robinsons.

On Wednesday we all went to Bewilderwood and survived the chill quite well, considering. Ended up in a den-making competition, with Dot spearheading one, and Phil and David leading the other. Both did exceptionally well, I thought. Another meal at ours in the evening, but the trend changed on Thursday, which was a bit warmer, in a relative sort of way. Everyone except me went to Cromer (Dot by train), bercause I had to wait for the alarm to be serviced and then go to the dentist to have a crown fitted. Not an actual crown, though that would probably have been cheaper. The process (with earlier preparation) left me with little change from £1200, which is about £1000 too much for any tooth work, in my opinion. Of course, I wouldn’t tell the dentist that. They have drills.

Owing to an earlier blunder, I had booked Dot and me into the Maddermarket in the evening, so instead of enjoying a leisurely meal in the Premier Inn with the others, we had a quick starter and then hurtled up to the theatre for an excellent performance of Alan Bennett’s 40 Years On. Sat next to James Goffin – to whom I owe my four years’ teaching at UEA (I took over his course) – and afterwards had a chat with David Newham, another former colleague and long-established Maddermarket actor, who said he was hoping for a part in the forthcoming Under Milk Wood.

Today was much warmer, but it was also the day of departure for our visitors. In the morning we took them up to Mousehold and had a game of football which I feel may take me several days to recover from. Good fun, though. Oliver is dead keen, and very skilful too. Amy organised a party lunch with some assistance from Dot (or should that be the other way round?), and I said goodbye early to meet Anna at the Castle. We were supposed to proceed to Dragon Hall for a meeting on Paston plans, but Sarah at Dragon Hall postponed twice within 24 hours, so I had to spend almost an hour with Anna, which was of course a real trial, not to say very pleasant indeed. Someone needs to get an armlock on Sarah, though.

Climbing and sliding

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Amy, David and Oliver tackle the big slide together
Amy, David and Oliver tackle the big slide together

David and the children should now be back home, and looking forward to a party tea. They had a party breakfast and a party lunch here, and Amy opened her parcels from us for her fifth birthday. She particularly like the tea set on a tray (with birthday cake) that we bought from Tickety-Boo, the excellent traditional toy shop at the top of St Andrew’s Street. All made of wood, but tasty just the same. Yesterday we spent five hours at Bewilderwood, not far from Wroxham, and it was superb. The weather was fine and dry, and although there was a slight autumnal chill in the air, it certainly wasn’t cold. Lots of exciting stuff to do involving high walks, slides, cable rides, assorted clambering and mazes. Oliver was particularly taken by the Muddle Maze, which he got down to a fine art. Both children entered into the spirit of it all wholeheartedly, and we ended up trying to make a den. That is, Dot and David were trying to make a den. Amy found a ready-made den, and Oliver soon followed. I decided someone needed to keep an eye on them, so that was me out of the den-building too. Shame. Had some nice food in the middle of it all. Just the right number of people there: I would imagine it could get pretty crowded in the summer holidays. As we left it started spotting with rain in an unconvincing way, and that soon petered out. In the evening, after the children were in bed, the three of us watched Slumdog Millionaire, which was excellent.

Norwich managed to lose 2-1 to Leeds by fluffing a goal kick in the last minute after playing really well. Dot is now doing some Philosophy for Children at a school in Taverham. If she returns in time, we’ll have a quick bite and then go to a concert by Stuart Townend, a Celtic-inspired hymn-writer, at Holy Trinity.