Tag Archives: caistor

Walking with the Romans

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Amy, oliver, Paul, David and Dot at Caistor St Edmund, hunting for fragments of pottery
Amy, Oliver, Paul, David and Dot at Caistor St Edmund, hunting for fragments of pottery

Unusual follow-up to one of Dot’s meetings, in that it led to the exposure of someone putting in false expenses – who claimed to be there, but wasn’t. Despite his prolonged and protested innocence, it was eventually proved that he was lying in his teeth. As a result he was “embarrassed”. Can’t say who it was, or where the meeting.

On Tuesday last week we had a compline and hot cross bun at Judy’s in the company of the Archers. A nice evening, except that the cool temperature (18C) led to my suffering a bit of a relapse. In fact I’m still not right, and nor is Dot. We both have a bit of a cough, have few reserves of strength and (in my case) tend to shiver and (in Dot’s) get too hot. Still, we have managed to carry on, because mostly it’s not too bad. Very irritating, though, as it affects our sleeping too.

Despite that we had a great time with the grandchildren and with David. We picked Oliver and Amy up at lunchtime on Wednesday and got the bonus of a very nice potato and leak soup from David. Good journey home and a rather late night after watching some of The Ark on TV.

The next day we visited Gressenhall. The weather was unexpectedly good – sunny and not too cold – and we were outside most of the time, taking pictures and making videos in the wood, and going for a lovely walk by the river and an exceedingly boring tractor ride. The cafe was pretty good, and there were some interesting old things to be seen, like a schoolroom and a shop. Also saw a horse ploughing in the distance. Drive home was rather convoluted after I avoided going through Dereham (probably unnecessarily). Saw the rest of The Ark. Pretty good.

On Good Friday Dot was helping some people from church with some singing on the Haymarket. After David arrived in late morning, Oliver and I went to meet her, and we all went to the museum to gather material for a project for Amy.  Built bridges and arches and played old games.

The Hendersons invited us to walk with them at Caistor St Edmund on Saturday, and we just made it before they gave us up (10.35). Pleasant walk, encompassing the new bridge and field across the Tas. Paul very good at teaching Oliver and Amy Roman things. He has a real gift. Afterwards we had lunch (pizza and salad) at theirs. Later we had a roast meal at home.

On Sunday, despite feeling pretty awful when I got up, I went to church to play music and do the prayers for the Easter Communion. By the time I got there I wasn’t too bad. Adrian arrived and accompanied me on his acoustic bass, and Howard joined in on the piano for the final traditional Easter hymn (Christ the Lord is risen today). Howard took the service, and Eleanor preached. All very lovely;  I found myself last to leave, which was not what I had intended at all.

David and the children left in late afternoon after a second shot at Amy’s new game, which involved setting up shops and telling stories and making money. She is quite a girl.

Today I took some flowers up to the Rosary while Dot went to watch Norwich City beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-0 and moved to second in the Championship. I think we’re safe from relegation now.

Wet, wet, wet

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Venta Icenorum: the diggers dig, and the archaeologists look on, while in the background an expert amateur tries to explain it all to visitors

It’s Bank Holiday Monday, and we’re awaiting the arrival of the Robinsons, with whom we intend to play pitch and putt later on. It’s a dour, grey day, but according to my invaluable rainradar site, it’s not going to rain in Norwich, so we should be OK. Plenty of rain over the last few days: on Saturday I took a walk to deliver a chess cheque to Mike Read and it poured down at the only point there was no shelter. I can’t remember the last time I was so wet outdoors – so wet in fact that when Dot rang and offered a lift, I declined on the grounds that I couldn’t get any wetter and might as well complete the walk. Which I did: an unusual experience, and strangely the rain stung my eyes. Even more strangely, my tennis shoes proved to be completely waterproof. Fortunately it was not cold.

The previous day it had rained pretty much incessantly, which put paid to any ideas Dot might have had of entertaining the Higbees in the garden. Still, we had a very pleasant cooked lunch indoors. Yesterday we did start outdoors – at Roger’s house in Paine Road, with the usual suspects: Jessie, Philip (for a short while), Ray and Janet and their daughter and son-in-law. When the cloud darkened menacingly we shifted indoors for a buffet, at which I showed commendable restraint, if I might say so. We walked home in the gathering dusk across Mousehold, summiting St James’ Hill, where some unspeakable vandals have removed the view plaque dedicated to R H Mottram and had a good go at defacing the plinth as well. Colourful evening sky, which no-one could deface. Dot showed a good turn of speed in her trainers. (We had gone part way on the bus on the outward journey.)

Earlier that day we got a surprisingly large congregation (nearly 20) at church, where I found myself leading, preaching and interceding, with Dot on solo violin. A couple of new people who I hope weren’t put off!

I’ve sent off for a marriage certificate for my grandfather and the enigmatic Ms Steele, just to confirm that it happened. (It didn’t – see later posts.) And in other family news Dot and I have seen the DVD of Sam’s Nativity extravaganza, Who’s the Baby?, which was very good on the scripting and acting front, though the production values were not brilliant, unsurprisingly. The only criticism I would make is that it went on a bit too long. He certainly has a good ear for dialogue, and is a pretty good actor too. Nice to have access to so much acting talent.

Earlier in the week the assistant pastor at Surrey came round at mended our table leg, which is the sort of thing you want an assistant pastor to do. And Dot and I popped out to Caistor to have a look at the excavations, which end this week. Not terribly impressive, to be honest. We overheard a couple of archaeologists discussing which ditch had been dug by Atkinson in the 1920s (it had all been covered up subsequently), and it occurred to us that this was not something that should really have been detaining them. We did learn some interesting stuff though: apparently the town is much later than I thought (probably about 300AD), and by no means densely inhabited. They’ll be turning in their graves…

Many chicks on offer

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Dot and Jennie at Pensthorpe

Spent the first three days of the week with Jennie C, who made one of her occasional visits to Norwich. The weather forecast had not been good, but as so often happens, it proved to be wrong. She arrived at about 1.30pm on Monday, and after lunch we took her to Caistor St Edmund for a walk round the Roman town. Because it had been so dry, you could see the outline of the streets in the grass, which made it a bit different. Afterwards, we walked up to the Saxon burial site on the hill.

Tuesday turned out very warm and sunny: we took Jennie for our second visit to Pensthorpe this year, and it was even better than last time, with many little chicks on offer – especially impressive were the avocets (featured in the EDP the same day) and the cranes. Jennie was a little disturbed by the geese and ducks who uninhibitedly tried to persuade us to share a sandwich with them. Later we went on to Blakeney, where we had full afternoon tea at the Blakeney Hotel. As a result I was not at all hungry in the evening, which was just as well, as we did not do enough jacket potatoes for the Tuesday Group, who turned out in unexpectedly large numbers. Jennie joined in the after-meal activities with some enthusiasm. A good evening.

On Wednesday I drove Jennie into town because she couldn’t manage the hill (angina), and she met Dot and Anne R, who had walked up. Not sure what happened after that, but Dot ended up with a new jacket. I was catching up with stuff at home. Maybe writing a sermon – or was that yesterday? Jennie left after an evening meal, and Dot and I flopped out on the sofa.

Yesterday was an odd day, when I suspect there was a brief increase in the strength of gravity, and I found it hard to drag myself into doing anything much. Started by taking Dot to the dentist, and then I went to the bank while she went and got a blood test. Not much happened after that, except on the computer. Checked bank statement, made some payments… Still not sure if I’ve paid my Barclaycard bill, because the site went down when I’d almost finished. Very annoying. It rained quite a bit too. My aunt Kathleen meanwhile has been diagnosed with lung cancer and probably has only two or three months to live.

20 March 2009

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As promised, another Winterton dunes picture: this time it’s Amy investigating one of the ruined structures at the village end of the valley. She heard us calling them sand dunes, so she decided to call them flower dunes. Very independent-minded girl.

I was wrong about the gas man: he arrived very early and said our boiler was not totally efficient but was working fine. This means the company has to tell us we should buy a new “green” boiler, but there’s nothing wrong with the old one, so throwing it away doesn’t sound very green to me. I am being environmentally friendly by continuing to use the one we have.

I won my fourth chess game in a row on Monday evening, and on Tuesday Dot, Barbara and I worked on a new leaflet for Philosophy4Children, which worked out quite successfully, I think, using Pages.

On Wednesday I visited my artist collaborater Ruthli and saw her second picture. I got quite a bit of inspiration as I looked at it, and several phrases sprang to mind. When I got home (after her husband Douglas showed me his amazingly organised garden) I managed to write a poem quite quickly, which was fortunate, because I had to get all four poems for the Norwich 20 Group exhibition in by the next day. This I managed to do, which was a relief. I quite like the poems, too. Ruthli’s house is amazing – absolutely full of art works of various kinds. The garden has sculptures too, so there’s no getting away from it. It’s totally wonderful.

In the afternoon, after Dot’s DSSO meeting, we had another visit from our financial adviser, who seems to be sorting out the best thing to do with Andrew’s money and Dot’s life insurance. I sense some coherence returning to our financial affairs – until, that is, we try to do Dot’s next tax return. This was followed in the evening by a district church council meeting and a distinct loss of coherence. For some reason these meetings always leave me depressed, even though 90 per cent of this one seemed quite uplifting. Then we started talking about decision-making and dialogue, which is all to do with whether we should attach ourselves to organisations like Transition Norwich, which in my view is quite wrong, since it is nothing to do with Christianity, is purely political and represents a point of view that would certainly not be shared by everyone in the church. Me, for instance.

Yesterday was quite cold and grey after some sunny days earlier in the week, and I was reluctant to go for a walk, though this is what I had planned to do while Dot was away on P4C business in Bury St Edmunds and Ipswich. In the end I got in the car and set off half-heartedly. I parked by a public footpath (part of Boudicca’s Way) at Arminghall, and the path over the field looked so inviting I decided to go a little way. But I was lured on and eventually did nearly four miles, round the lip of a quarry and across hilly fields to Caistor Lane, and then back by a slightly different route. Really enjoyed it in the end. Although the quarry is only yards from a road I have known well since my childhood, I had never actually seen it before. Since it is an amazingly large hole, this is quite surprising, but it is well shielded. I have become very fond of the countryside in that area around Caistor St Edmund. I suppose that area was part of my childhood, and I’ve always liked it.

I have more or less finished all the work I can do on the Paston Guidebook at the moment and need to try a couple of the walks and get back to Lucy for discussion. At the moment she is more concerned with the Grapevine exhibition which is coming up at the end of the month. I have sent out a large number of e-invitations and printed out some other stuff for it. More to be done, though.