Tag Archives: car

Blood pressure rising

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New bike successfully purchased – officially for Oliver's birthday tomorrow, but he seems to have got wind of it...
New bike successfully purchased – officially for Oliver’s birthday tomorrow, but he seems to have got wind of it…

Another long gap, which might seem to reflect how busy I am or, possibly, how little is happening in my life. Reader, it is the former.

Dot returned safely from a successful philosophy session in Middlesbrough, and is now in Hethersett, sorting and packing on her aunt’s behalf with Angela, because the bungalow has to be vacated very soon. She will probably be there all day, as she was last Wednesday. It’s amazing how long it takes to empty a house, even a small one.

Over the past week I have successfully navigated a DCC meeting; transporting Phil and Joy to the doctor’s; an uplifting visit to the dentist (no pain, nothing wrong); and (yesterday) a meeting at the Norfolk Record Office about the Paston exhibition, which starts next month. The latter was followed swiftly by a gathering of  Chronicle at our house, accompanied by a lunch lovingly prepared by Dot. We made plans for the CD, for a performance at the NRO and Cromer, and for more writing, with Oxnead as a focus.

In the evening I played what will probably be my last chess game for some time, losing to Martin Woolnough in the club knockout tournament, which I have got knocked out of on an annual basis for many years. Not a bad game, but for some reason a bit of a relief. Don’t know why, because I love the game, and I have friends at the club.

I have been feeling a bit down for the last few days – at times extremely down, which is unusual for me. It followed a visit to the bank (Santander) by Dot and myself to try to sort out our accounts following the bank’s decision to reorganise their system. I got so angry by all the complications, tie-ins, requirements and so on that I left without doing anything and told the guy what he was saying was rubbish and very annoying. He didn’t seem to agree.

I think I got depressed because this came on top of a number of other things that I haven’t been able to sort out – seats for the flights to Florida and Andrew’s money being prominent among them. I can actually feel my blood pressure rising.

The car’s air-conditioning is another thing. I took it in for diagnosis on Thursday, and the mechanic, who was very helpful and taught me a lot about air-conditioning by actual demonstration, decided that it needed a new compressor and some replacement seals. These are on order, which means the air-conditioning will have cost me over £1000 by the time it’s done, and there’s not even a guarantee that it will work properly when it’s finished. Meanwhile, Dot’s car is making alarming noises.

On the bright side, we had a very pleasant evening on Thursday with the Eagles and Bob and Felix from next door (Mary was meant to come, but she was ill). And on Saturday the Higbees came round for a lovely lunch, which stretched into late afternoon. It’s nice to have friends.

The weather is looking extremely autumnal, with plenty of rain today. The gorillas have gone, but not before I completed the trail on Saturday morning, the last one being hidden in the Roman Catholic Cathedral. This narrowly failed to win the prize for hardest to find, however. That was in Jarrolds’ basement.

Dot and car both unable to go out

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A rare picture of our new wall (usually inaccessible or hidden behind Wildlife vehicles)

Ok, that’s far too long a gap – yet again. In self-justification, I was going to do it at the weekend, but someone decided late on Saturday afternoon that they weren’t going to be able to do a sermon the next morning, so I had to write one. As part of my sermon was about how self-justification is unnecessary and not very appealing, you can ignore that last bit. Oh dear: too late.

Dot has been ill too. She gets really bad colds that don’t normally last all that long but are extremely unpleasant for her while they last. They’re also quite frightening, especially when she can’t stop coughing and can’t breathe. She’s been in bed for a couple of days, but is now improving (though still in bed at the moment).

Last night of course she was unable to go to the final concert of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival at St Andrew’s Hall – a performance of Verdi’s Requiem by the London Philharmonic and the Festival Chorus. I took Judy instead, and she was most appreciative. Rightly so, because it was  superb. This is really not my sort of music, but it was top quality. I was particularly impressed by the soprano. At the end one of the cellists mouthed to one of her colleagues that it had been a good performance. She was right.

We saw the Cracknells in passing. Wouldn’t have thought it was their sort of thing either, but their eclecticism shouldn’t surprise me any more.

The weather yesterday and today is really summery. It wasn’t too bad on Saturday, but there was a cool wind while Colin and his son were rebuilding part of our wall at the back and erecting a new trellis. I have to say it looked really good, despite Dot’s not being able to supervise.

Dot’s car is ill too. It sprung a leak in the power steering fluid reservoir, which had to be replaced, but it will apparently take three weeks to do so; so we are a one-car family. I have looked carefully at our diaries, and I think we shall be able to cope. Perhaps we only need one car… Dot doesn’t think so.

It went into the garage last Monday, and the same evening I played my last game of chess this season, beating Andy Pandian (Oh yes) to reach 6/8 in my tournament. I still don’t know if this will be enough to win it. I suspect not. But as it may be my last game for a while, and it features a very nice finish, here it is (well, the finish, anyway):

At this point I envisaged a nice sacrificial finish, but I had to persuade him to allow it, so I played 40 Qd6. Exchanging queens would give me an easily superior position, so as I expected, he played 40…Qc3, whereupon I played 41 f6. This wins whatever he does, but happily he didn’t see the main threat and played 41…axb, and on my 42 Qxf8+ he resigned immediately. He has to take the Queen, when 43 Rd8 is mate. Not difficult, but quite pleasant.

Longish meeting of the Paston Trustees on a very chilly Thursday. Dot dropped me at Rob’s while she took Jessie to the crematorium at Horsham St Faith’s (it was the anniversary of Frank’s death), and Rob gave me a lift to Paston. Much discussion on many issues, which I somehow managed to translate the next day into coherent minutes. My preparations for Dragon Hall seem OK (I had seen Sarah again) and they were fairly impressed by my new flyers. I’m OK at producing publicity, but I’m not sure what to do with it.

Much else going on in the background. A has now been transferred to a smaller ward after he had become very hostile to other patients for no apparent reason, but on the plus side he is now getting visits from church friends who I got in touch with. Phil is in Southampton with Sam, who has just got a new job at St Swithun’s Girls’ School in Winchester, which should suit him down to the ground. Meanwhile I’m taking Joy to Ditchingham this afternoon for a five-day retreat.

 

 

Something sinister at the car wash

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Feeling strangely calm. The sun is out, Land of Hope and Glory is playing upstairs, and we are awaiting the arrival of David and Kristine from London. There is the slight worry that they may get delayed by bunting and street parties, but on the whole, I am optimistic. This is despite my incipient abscess, which necessitated a visit to the dentist yesterday. No pain, but definitely something odd going on up there – not at the dentist’s, but in my mouth. The dentist agreed and has booked me in for root treatment. Oh, joy. Still, it’s ten days away. Can’t think about that yet.

Dot has spring-cleaned the entire house, and we cleaned out Waitrose yesterday. I’m not normally tempted by food, but Waitrose is another matter. It all looks so interesting. Before that we visited the charity shop, the tip and the East Europeans who run the car wash on Aylsham Road. The latter are frighteningly efficient: they also vaccuumed the interior, and all in about 15 minutes. While we were there an expensive car drew up and three sinister men emerged. Made me wonder if the advertised “Polish Protection” was what it seemed.

I should explain that there was a free Elgar CD with the Telegraph last weekend. The funeral of Dot’s friend Jan was in Reading yesterday. Keep thinking about her husband Pete – a really nice bloke. Spent some time trying to find an obituary notice online, but in vain: eventually Dot rang the house and spoke to someone (possibly Pete’s father) to discover that they didn’t want flowers. So will be sending a donation to charity instead.

Wine, women and song

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Relaxing moment on the cliff between Mundesley and Paston during the wet and windy walk at the end of April.

On the brink of our holiday in Scotland: Andrew is staying with us for a couple of nights, and we’re dropping him off on the way north tomorrow afternoon. We’ve just been for a walk down the Riverside path, taking in the new bridge, and I also got him a new pair of slippers. Yesterday Phil drove me to Coventry to pick him up, and everything went pretty smoothly, except the usual Elveden chaos, which we avoided (once we could reach the roundabout) by taking the pretty route via West Stow, Ingham and Barnham.

Not much rain in the last couple of days, but it’s been very cold (for May). Still, mustn’t grumble. It will probably snow in Scotland. As I write Dot is up at the garage, who are having a second look at her car after failing to fix it yesterday. They replaced some kind of coil, but the mystery light came on again at Coltishall after her visit to North Walsham. She was not happy.

Other news this week: an unexpected pregnancy. I cannot say whose pregnancy (in the style of Walt Whitman) but it landed us a bottle of champagne, so we were delighted. At the pregnancy, too. On the same day we had a meal at Cafe Rouge with Angela and Rodney to discuss the Ethel situation, which we did. Nice meal.

Earlier in the week: on Monday I took my massive Division Two champion trophy back to the chess club and took part on the John Swan Rapidplay, where I scored a pretty normal 50%, losing to two of the joint winners and drawing with the winner of the grading prize. My best game was in fact a loss to Jeff Dawson. Found it all very tiring, though. On Wednesday I took one of my games from earlier in the season to Mike Read so that he can annotate it for En Passant (if he thinks it’s worth it). Had a cup of tea with him and indulged in a bit of nostalgia.

On Tuesday, prior to a rather depleted Tuesday Group, Caroline and Rob came here again to  discuss further the Paston event at St Peter Hungate in June. Think we’re getting there – I even sang my song, The Ballad of Gresham Town – and we decided to invite Kay to join us for our next meeting at the end of the month.

Hard work and good meals

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A glimpse of the new floor in the study

A kind of order has been restored to 22 Aspland Road. The new floor is all down, and only one thing remains to be done – get  a carpenter (Gary) to reduce the oak post under my desk sufficiently to get it in the space now available. Not quite sure why Mark couldn’t do this. Apparently he didn’t have the right saw.

The filing cabinets presented the most difficulty, because they had to me emptied and filled again each time they were moved. The problem was exacerbated because I took the opportunity to do some resorting of files – mainly grouping them more rationally but in some cases doing some thinning out. Very tiring work, but I’m pleased with the result. Moving the actual cabinets wasn’t the problem we thought it might be, and we’ve also got the hall (Gemmell) bookcase back inside and full of books. Dot thinned out the dresser. Of course we now have stuff in the garage that needs to be disposed of – particularly our futon, for which there will not be room when our study has been converted into a two-person room. (Next stage. Gary again. Hopefully we will also get him to fix the catch on the attic trapdoor.)

At present my car is in the garage to be serviced and MOT tested at huge cost (“It’s the big one”). I’m hoping to get it back before I need to be at the surgery to discuss my blood pressure. but I also want them to do a proper job on the lights, which haven’t been working properly for some months. Pressure? No pressure. None at all. No, really.

Had a very pleasant few days to offset the hard work in the house. On Saturday went to the Greens with Judy for a lovely evening. The Veseys had also been invited, but someone had got the dates wrong. So it was just the five of us plus Anandi and her fiancé David, who are lovely. Saw some photos from Howard and Anna’s recent Ethiopian holiday, made fascinating by their comments and enthusiasm. Lovely meal too. Teetotal Judy gave us a lift, so were able to enjoy Howard’s excellent wine.

Last night’s Valentine Day meal at the Eagle on Newmarket Road was also superb. I had a smoked salmon terrine, followed by the best ribeye steak I’ve had for a long time, and we shared a meringue and fruit sweet. Setting very pleasant, a rose for Dot and service first-class. Could hardly have been better. We didn’t drink there because I was driving, but we came home and finished the evening with a couple of glasses of Prosecco.

Earlier in the day Vicky came round with Amy and George. Jared was away in Kent because his mother had died suddenly (though she had been unwell). Amy and George were pretty lively (respectively), and of course George had to climb the stairs. Lot of illness around: my aunt Josephine’s friend Joyce has recently died, and Josephine has moved (at least temporarily) into a home on Cecil Road. My nephew Joe is very concerned about numbness in different parts of his body (CT scan clear), and his brother Sam has dislocated his shoulder again. Saw Joe outside the Cathedral in the remaining snow on Saturday: he had just given a 2½-hour lecture. Had a chat with him and Birgit, who was waiting for him.

Last Friday I took the afternoon off to go to North Walsham while Mark finished the floor. We had a meeting of the group which will probably be known as Chronicle (Caroline, Rob and me) to discuss putting a Paston show together suitable for presenting at the Coast festival late this year, as well as at Dragon Hall next year or St Peter Hungate (some time). This last followed a meeting with a Hungate trustee on Friday which established that they would be keen for us to do stuff at the church, which is a prime Paston site as well as being significant in its own right. He bought tea and cake at the Briton Arms for Rob and myself – has to be a good sign. The three of us are now going to do some writing centring on Margaret Paston from Mautby.

I led the service on Sunday, and we followed that (after coffee) with a rehearsal of four songs aimed at the Seagull on the 26th. Went surprisingly well considering I was working on the tune of one of them till the last minute. They are Bernadette, Living on a Fault Line, I didn’t think it would come to this and Where you go I will follow (which is not a stalking song). The cold weather has been abating since then – probably not causal – and for the last couple of days it’s been damp , windy and a few degrees above freezing.

After our North Walsham meeting last Monday I called in to see Jessie and her new bathroom. Roger was there too. The bathroom looked really good, though disturbingly there were two metal tubes left over. She seemed in good form. Elsewhere in the county someone has been found to be stealing money rather systematically from another of Dot’s relatives. Who? Sub judice, I’m afraid.

Local history difficult to pitch

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Dot by the Tower of London as daylight fails

At the end of a damp and gloomy week, there is a touch of sun in the sky. And there is some sense of achievement too, as I’ve finished and sent off the five poems to Ian Fosten. All I have to do now is turn up on Friday and say something about why I wrote them. “Because you asked me to” will not be an adequate answer. Dot has decided to come too, so I will have moral support. From there we will head north and stay the night at Toton by invitation, going on to Buxton the following day. I have also finished a sermon for Sunday, based fairly tightly on one I wrote exactly ten years ago.

On the subject of poems, Oliver sent me a brilliant one that he wrote at school. It’s about the moon, and called God’s eye, and has rhymes and similes and everything. Exceptionally good, IMHO, and he was sent to show it to the headmaster. Spoke to him and to Amy last night on the phone: Amy seemed to like the story I wrote for her and found it “very funny”. She thinks it’s my function to be funny, and she’s probably right. I must write her a really funny story.

Speaking of funny stories, I have just finished the current Booker prize winner, The Sense of an Ending, and it’s not funny at all. In fact it was rather disappointing, the plot depending on one character not revealing something that they had no real reason not to reveal and that was not too hard to guess anyway. I suppose it had some interest philosophically, but it belongs to a category that I find increasingly frustrating: well written but basically pessimistic and lacking in any trace of redemption. On a brighter note, I’ve now finished two of Kate Atkinson’s Brodie novels, which were unusual in combining good writing, murder and humour.

Going back in time – while Dot had a long lie-in, not knowing I’d left the house, I spent all of a chilly Tuesday morning in the garage showroom at Wrights, while a man did his best to disguise some scratches on the car caused by a vandal a few weeks ago, and another man tried to correct a problem with the direction of the lights. I think the latter was successful, but I haven’t really been able to try it out yet. Should find out this evening, when we eat at the Banningham Crown with Jessie and Roger.

I did go out to Mundesley library on Wednesday for a Paston-related Reading the Landscape session, during which Dr Richard Hoggett gave half a dozen of us some pointers on how to use computers to research local history. Difficult to pitch, you might think – and indeed one lady (out of an initial company of eight) left almost immediately after discovering it involved computers at a level beyond her expertise. Not sure what her expertise was. Rob had always intended to leave early, but another two also fell by the wayside after getting the direction they required. I could have left then too, but felt I should stay on as the only PHS representative, so I lingered. However, after 90 minutes I departed as well.

On Thursday Dot discovered she had a Nafpht meeting at Thurton, which interrupted our “day off” together. However it gave me a chance to finish off my poems. By way of compensation we went for lunch to Frankie & Benny’s, which seemed to be making an attempt on the Three Horseshoes slow service record until I complained, when the main course miraculously appeared. Staff were very apologetic, and the food, to be fair, was excellent. In the evening we went to the cinema to see The Iron Lady, which featured a tremendous performance by Meryl Streep as Mrs Thatcher but in the end I think got the balance slightly wrong: too much dementia and not enough time given to her earlier life. Still compelling, though.

Sometimes the sacrifices work

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A rather bad picture of Amy having a larger-than-life experience in the Cathedral

Dot’s dizziness persists, and after trying fewer tablets with poor results, she made a late decision to go to the doctor’s this morning. By chance she got a woman doctor who was very thorough and knew exactly what was going on – apparently. Now Dot is going back on Thursday for the doctor to do a manoeuvre  with her neck which should shift some crystals that are causing the problem.

After this encouraging news we went up to the garage to get a quote on fixing some scratches on the car, apparently caused deliberately by some merry passer-by. We decided on the cheaper option, which will be accomplished next Tuesday. I’ve also booked the car in for a service, which will not be cheap.

Yesterday I met with Caroline and Rob at Fakenham to discuss forming a new PHS offshoot (us) to arrange arts-related events.  We’re concentrating on the COAST festival at the end of the year, but hope to fix up some lesser performances before that. Rob is drawing up a structure, but the performance will include readings, narrative, possibly monologues and hopefully yet-to-be-written songs. Quite exciting, and it might enable us to sell some of the recently published books.

After this I drove to Aylsham to return a book of vinyl samples, since we had decided to go with John Lewis on the grounds that it’s much more expensive. No, that can’t be right. It’s on the grounds that they’re very thorough and have a much wider range of possibilities. While I was out, a JL man came and measured the space with a tape measure. I mention this because it seems so low-tech. We had earlier (on Saturday) borrowed two vinyl samples in order to decide between them – this proved unexpectedly difficult, but we eventually made a choice. The man (another man) came to pick them up on his way home and, having seen the house, immediately plumped for the one we’d decided on. Needless to say, it was not the one that was on special offer.

My sermon on Sunday seemed to go down well, though I had a lot of trouble preparing it. Surprising how often that happens. In other news we attended the opening of Harriet’s brother’s shop last Friday, which was amazing in the sense that no effort at all had been made to make it look appealing. The shop front was just empty. One or two people were mooching around, and there was good wine and Sri Lankan food on offer (we bought some for the freezer), but although H’s brother Francis was charming, it was hard to see how it was all going to come together. Maybe it will become a cult food shop and go nationwide. And maybe not.

I’m making some progress with Amy’s story but am not entirely sure where it’s going. I have turned the last Little story into a booklet, ready to be posted to Oliver, but I’d like to finish Amy’s story first. Must try harder. Have made no progress at all on the five poems I have to write for Ian Fosten, and a couple of CDs have arrived from the King Street project that I’m supposed to listen to and be inspired by. Have read a Kate Atkinson book I was given for Christmas and started on the second. Not bad.

Last night I was called in as an emergency reserve for my chess team (I am having a chess sabbatical, but they were desperate), and while Dot was at a Norwich Youth for Christ meeting, resigning as a trustee, I managed a presentable win against Jim McAvoy featuring a rather nice sacrificial attack. Sometimes they work; sometimes they don’t. Here it is (for chess lovers):

1 c4 f5 2 g3 Nf6 3 Nf3 e6 4 Bg2 c6 5 0-0 d5 6 d3 Bd6 7 Nc3 0-0 8 e4 d4 9 Nxd4 Bxg3 10 hg Qxd4 11 Be3 Qd7 12 Bc5 Rd8 13 Qb3 b6 14 Be3 Ng4 15 Bg5 Re8 16 ef Qxd3 17 Be4 Qd7 18 fe Qxe6 19 Rae1 Qf7 20 Nb5!? Qh5 21 Bh4 g5 22 Nc7 gh 23 c5+ Kf8 24 Bg6(!) Qxg6 25 Rxe8+ Qxe8 26 Nxe8 Kxe8 27 Qg8+ 1-0

A significant centenary

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My mother in untypical pose on our Lea Francis on holiday in Devon, not long before my father died

My mother was born 100 years ago today, in Eaton village, just outside Norwich. She remembered seeing “the first car go up Eaton hill” and lived through huge changes – most significant of which for her was the early death of her husband at the age of 42, leaving her with three small boys to bring up. It triggered her move back from Coventry to Norwich (I preceded her by six weeks, staying with our former neighbours in Brian Avenue so that I could start school in the city).

Her father was a gardener. She was a teacher and lived to the age of 82. She was a very dutiful mother but in a way never got over her husband’s death. At home she was always there, and I appreciate most of all her decision not to oppose my going to London to live and work, though it would have been easy to put moral pressure on me to stay. I never asked her why.

Sadly she didn’t live to see her great-grandchildren, but she would have loved them as much as we all do. Dot and I went to Caddington on Wednesday – a beautifully sunny drive – to watch Oliver perform in his school concert (he led out the boys’ choir), to help put up the Christmas decorations and to have supper with David while they went to karate. Amy’s reading is coming on really well. We drove back quite late: I’m sure there’s something wrong with the car headlights, but I don’t know what. Today Dot has taken my car to Bradwell (near Yarmouth) for interviewing, so I hope she’s not too late back.

She spent Saturday in London with Anne, and thankfully a poor weather outlook turned out to be quite wrong. They went to the Degas exhibition at the Royal Academy, had lunch at Fortnum and Mason’s and then did a little shopping before catching the 21.30 train back. They got very cheap tickets – so cheap that they travelled first class, as befits first-class women.

The next evening we went to the Seagull again and I read half a dozen poems, as well as presenting a brown envelope that I hope contained a cheque to Lynn Mummery, the winner of the Two Valleys poetry competition, which I had judged. I was pleased to discover that she was quite a new writer, and I encouraged her to come to the next Seagull extravaganza in a couple of months’ time. We shall see.

The gas man cameth on Tuesday to service our central heating. He was a chatty guy who left his torch behind, but before that he checked all our radiators, fixed a couple of the valves that had broken and revealed how I could get the radiators in the living room warmer by shutting off a valve in the bedroom. You learn something new every day. He also replaced a pump in the airing cupboard which I believed had a sticking valve. I now suspect he may have replaced the wrong one, but hey, what can you do?

Off to the surgery in a minute to get my blood tested following a visit to the doctor last week. I’ve just finished seven days of antibiotics and was feeling quite good till I stopped taking them. Oddly, though, I think this may be a coincidence. I hope the blood will reveal something significant (but something that can be easily put right).

Extravagant lifestyle

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Ralph at the Adam, with a bit of Bruce

Over a week since I last posted, which can mean only one of two things: nothing much has happened, or I’ve been extremely busy. Reader, it is the former, although it did seem there was plenty happening at the time. In the last few days I have been getting some exercise in a bid to lose weight before Dot’s food-counting regime goes over the top. Have lost a couple of pounds following walks, mainly in the Mousehold area, and a bit of gardening and clambering around in the loft (where, incidentally, there was no sign of water incursion). Today I walked radically back from Joe’s after a couple of hours’ chess. Brisk wind, but sunny. Dot has been at Barbara’s working on her P4C and should be back shortly. Colin is due to come and survey a couple of garden jobs at around 6pm, and then Dot embarks on a Girls’ Night Out at the Greens, which sadly clashed with our Tuesday Group, and the Tuesday Group lost. A certain member of it suggested that the male members of it should have a Men’s Night Out, but as I can’t imagine anything worse than going out with a crowd of men, I was less than enthusiastic and will be having a Tim’s Night In.

Most of the time I have been catching up with financial matters and e-mails, as well as compiling the rota for St Augustine’s, which is a bit tricky as certain people who shall be nameless forget when they’re going to be away, and then remember just too late. I am in the process of selling some shares to fund our extravagant lifestyle, and I have persuaded KLM to send us our e-tickets, which should have arrived about a month ago. I shall soon have to sort Andrew’s money out.

Our former scanner is no more. It is nailed to the loft. It is a dead scanner. Happily, friend Vicky M had given us a scanner she no longer needs, and I am working out how to make it function properly. It is decidedly promising.I decided to follow some advice I saw online and not load the scanner software but use Image Capture on Snow Leopard. Result! Now I am looking out for someone with a VHS player they don’t need. Ours has bitten the dust following an ejection problem. I know how it feels.

Highlight, possibly, of the past week was the visit of Ralph and Lynne Martin, back for a month from the Seychelles and in the process of selling their house in Hingham. I warned them about the space-time distortion, but they went ahead anyway. Dot and I met Bruce at the station and we walked to the Adam and Eve, mainly along the riverside path. There we met the aforesaid Martins, together with a late-arriving Robin L, and had lunch together. The landlady of the Adam and Eve is Rita, who used to be at the EDP social club, and she amazingly remembered me. An altogether pleasant hour or two, and not a bad pie.

Leaving aside our haircuts, other exciting events included Dot’s having her MX5 folding roof cleaned (after we had navigated through a massive hold-up on Aylsham Road caused by a man sitting in a van surrounded by cones and traffic lights), which gave her a lot of satisfaction. And of course the DCC meeting on Thursday, at which we achieved a full house. Because Matt wants to come on the DCC, I am standing down and will be co-opted on. This will give me an excuse to miss a few meetings by saying I can’t vote, so I might as well not come. This is different to the forthcoming General Election, at which I can vote, but might as well not come.

Avoided losing at chess last night by getting a winning position and agreeing a draw. Well, you never know what’s going to happen, do you?

On jacks

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Dot got an iPod from David for her birthday. Amy and Oliver were fascinated.
Dot got an iPod from David for her birthday. Amy and Oliver were fascinated.

Cold and wet today; ventured into the city before lunch to make inquiries at the bank. Was amazed to discover that if I want to send money to someone in the United States I cannot do it online but have to obtain some kind of money order which, if I can’t get bank details from the payeee, will cost me £25. I then have to post it to the States. How archaic is that?

Dot’s car is up on jacks in the driveway and has been since last Friday, when Wicked Wheels came and revealed that they couldn’t match the colour without taking the wheels away. There is some damage to the rims, and Dot is having them done as a Christmas present. So they took the wheels away, leaving the car very vulnerable: have to say I’m quite nervous about it, but only two days to go now. Meanwhile we were also going to get her computer upgraded, as it’s very low on memory, but the quote we have for that is over £200, so now we’re wondering about getting a new Macbook Pro. Will have to consult my technical expert.

Went to the Muspole Street private view on Thursday evening and bought a couple of small things in return for some rather pleasant mulled wine. Some very creative stuff going on there. Problem with art: you can’t just keep on buying it. Joe and Birgit came round on Saturday, and we had a good meal which more than made up for Norwich City losing 3-1 to Carlisle in the second round of the F A Cup. This was a neat trick, as it avoided them going out in the third round, which is what they normally do. Why are they such an appalling cup team? Answers on a postcard…

Yesterday I found myself leading a Communion service, with John Easton playing the role of vicar. Because of widespread absenteeism and Rosemary’s fragility, I was landed with taking the Cup round, which I’ve never done before. It may be illegal, but John didn’t seem to think so. Anyway, I managed to avoid dropping it. In the evening we supplied the pizza for Ambient Wonder, and I didn’t realise that one of them was half polystyrene, so it stuck to the pan. Not terminally, I’m glad to say.