Tag Archives: boiler

I am now 70, so I can do what I like

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Beached, and looking its age.
Beached, and looking its age.

So I have managed to reach the age of 70, struggling across the line after eating and drinking too much over the weekend. Yesterday was my birthday, of course, and we had a celebration at church after my sermon on the beheading of John the Baptist. Dot made a delicious chocolate cake and bought champagne. She invited several people, only one or two of whom could come: Vicky and Paul and Maryta (the latter for the celebration only). Really nice to have so many people wishing me well.

I got texts from David and Chrissy in Italy, and in the evening Dot and I went to Cafe Rouge in the Chapelfield Mall with the Robinsons. The restaurant was fairly empty, except for our dentist and his wife, but the food was excellent: I think this type of food is my favourite, especially the way they do steak and chips. We had a free bottle of bubbly too. Hope this restaurant doesn’t go the way of the previous one on Exchange Street. The service was also excellent.

The previous night had been Roger’s 55th birthday party, at Jurnet’s Club. The atmosphere and food were first class, though we didn’t know many people. The music was pretty loud (though good); so both Dot and I found it difficult to conduct conversations. I spent much of the evening listening to Jude, but I practically had to sit in her lap to hear what she was saying. She is apparently being threatened with legal action by a woman in a wheelchair for suggesting it might be helpful if she (the wheelchair woman) brought a friend to the Red Hat excursions to look after her, in view of her disability.

Also spoke to Fiona, George and Debbie (apparently Roger’s new girlfriend, though he’s known her a long time) and surprisingly, Kim Pummell, with whom he went to school. She works as a secretary to various Archant executives, and used to arrange my company cars for me. Meanwhile Dot was having similarly difficult conversations with men I didn’t know.

Earlier in the day I went to a farm at Aylmerton to assist Peter Stibbons with some filming for the Paston DVD. He was already being assisted technically by Paul Damen, but I was found a role as sound man. I also read one of the letters in costume. The location was Tony Colman’s Park Farm (no relation), and because of an anomaly on the map I found it hard to find. Still, better late… Lovely sunny spot. Most of the re-enactors were there.

On Friday the gas man came to service our boiler and discovered we needed a flush-through. I am awaiting a phone call to arrange this. Nice bloke. In the evening we went round the Hendersons for a light meal. No flush-through required.

On Thursday I had taken Joy and Phil to the doctor’s again. It was their 40th anniversary on Sunday and they managed to get to church to celebrate, which was quite an achievement for them, as they find it hard to walk far nowadays, and both get tired quickly.

This week has turned rainy. Joy is worried because the 23rd (when they plan to go to Southampton) is forecast to be 29C. I tried to persuade her that no-one can make accurate ten-day forecasts, but she remains concerned.

Short hair, broken fan

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Another shot from our Whitlingham walk
Another shot from our Whitlingham walk

Here I am waiting to have a sigmoidoscopy. It doesn’t happen till early this afternoon, but already my stomach is churning (actually it’s being doing it for days). Not sure if it’s foreboding or an actual stomach upset. The operation is minor, of course, but it’s the bit before and after I’m not keen on. I’ll keep you posted if I survive.

Dot is out visiting a school but will be back to accompany me to the hospital, in case I need sedation, which I am much in favour of. I am totally against unnecessary pain, and I’m not all that much in favour of necessary pain.

Happily our heating is back on. The boiler fan broke on Tuesday, leaving us with an electrically powered group meal in the evening. Quite cosy in fact, but the rest of the house was decidedly chilly. The gas man turned up the next day at 10am, at precisely the same time as our hairdresser, who had been rescheduled from Monday. He took some time to work out the problem, but then happily was able to fix it.

Meanwhile Dot was rather nervously having her hair cut short: it looks good. Mine is pretty short too, but it pales into insignificance beside Dot’s. Hair and boiler were both sorted in time for Dot and I to drive to the NRO to hear Anna’s “Paston Treasure” talk, which as very good. Judy was also there and so, surprisingly, was Lucy, rising from her sickbed and driven by Diana.

In the evening, while Dot was at orchestra, I walked up to the Maddermarket and got a ticket to see The Seagull, in which two of my former colleagues at ECN were performing. The theatre was sparsely populated, but the acting was good, though I think the guy who shot himself at the end (spoiler alert) should have done it much earlier. Trevor Burton was excellent, as was David Newham. The older woman/famous actress didn’t help the plot by being clearly more attractive than the young Nina who was supposed to be luring Trevor away from her.

I nearly missed the opportunity of seeing the play because I was unexpectedly asked to play chess for the A team in the evening, but this proved to be a false alarm: one of the regular players recovered from a bad back and beat the Norfolk champion. So that was all good.

Yesterday I called on the parish treasurer, Susannah, who lives in a house overlooking Carey’s Meadow in Thorpe. A totally stunning view. We had a conversation about splitting the parish share, which we agreed should be 70-30. I have no idea whether this is right or not. I suspect not. (Definitely not. – Ed. mf)

Later, while Dot was shopping after lunch with Sue Eagle and friends, I drove to Paston for a meeting of the trustees. A painfully slow process – and that was just getting there. The meeting itself was OK, though I was surprised to hear that Lucy was disputing the bill from the UEA, although  she’d told me she was paying it. I am having nothing more to do with it.

Cold, cold, cold – and that’s just indoors

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Dot surveys a spectacular icefall in the Goyt Valley last weekend

Beginning to get a true appreciation of what it is like to feel cold. Our central heating has now been off for 48 hours, and as the fault is in the boiler, we have no hot water either. The engineer came at lunchtime yesterday and diagnosed a broken fan, but needless to say he did not “have one on the van” (man, van, no fan), so said he would return at 3.30pm today – about 15 minutes ago, in fact. No sign as yet, and no comforting phone call to say he’s on the way. We have had an open fire going in the lounge and, since this morning, a fan heater in my study, but nothing can disguise the fact that the house is, on average, very, very cold. I have five layers on, and Dot has gone to the shops. I would quite like to go out for a walk, because it’s a beautiful day (though cold), but I have to wait for the British Gas man with van and fan.

Yesterday, after the engineer’s visit, we went to the cinema to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, which was pretty good actually, and the cinema was warm. Not the sort of film I would want my grandchildren to see. They would be totally terrified, but I was only mildly frightened. Besides, it was warm. We locked ourselves in the lounge for the rest of the evening and watched TV. I know doing something physical would have made more sense, but somehow being cold puts you off doing anything constructive. I suppose it’s like wanting to lie down when you have hypothermia, though we have not quite reached that stage yet.

The heating failed before the Tuesday Group came round, but happily the house had not lost much heat by that time, and we were relatively comfortable. Just as well, because the group included George Myers, aged about six weeks, who had some unusual theological and prophetic insights but is a bit sensitive on environmental issues.

One good thing: I am now feeling quite a lot better and am hoping that whatever it was has gone away permanently, rather than slipped off for reinforcements. Dot still has some back pain and visiting the chiropractor twice a week. On Monday I managed another win at chess after trying an unusual gambit – knocking my opponent’s drink over while he was out of the room, and having to clear up the broken glass while he tried to concentrate on the game. Fortunately he is a nice bloke, and I stopped his clock for a while, so he wasn’t abusive when I won.