Tag Archives: cars

Lunching with the Bishop

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Our Christmas present from Oliver – a rose – has produced two lovely new blooms.
Our Christmas present from Oliver – a rose – has produced two lovely new blooms.

Rather a lot of paperwork to bring the month to a close this week, and so a regrettable reduction in physical activity. Not much to record there, other than a trip into the city to pay a cheque and a walk round the Rosary yesterday. And here I am at the computer again while Dot ventures into the city. On her return we head to the church hall to rehearse a few songs with Phil.

The paperwork included researching and writing three article for Parish Pump – on the Armenian Genocide, Einstein and the Mt Tambora eruption in 1815 – writing a sermon, and compiling a financial report for the year for the DCC. I am also trying to write a tanka a day for Lent. In addition I have spent about half an hour on the phone renewing my car insurance, and a further quarter of an hour (most of it waiting) to sort out our lost Gift Aid repayment. I have also booked some tickets to see Adrian Plass in June, which is more complicated than it sounds because I had to do it in batches of three. The e-mail replies are the ticket, and the five of us may not go together, partly because Dot and I are due to return from Scarborough that day, with hold-ups always a possibility.

The highlight of the week was probably the lunch at St Luke’s on Monday with a select company including the Bishop, the Dean, the Archdeacon and two prospective vicars. We gave one of the vicars (and his wife) a tour of the parish in our (borrowed) car afterwards and discovered parts of it that we didn’t know existed. Well, not as part of the parish, anyway. “Our” vicar seemed very nice, and we rather hope he will be selected, though that is hardly fair on the other one, who we didn’t really get a chance to chat to. We believe the name of the “lucky” man will be announced tomorrow, if he has said yes. The Bishop and Dean were very pleasant, and the Bishop remembered Dot’s name; so that’s all good 🙂

After the lunch and tour we picked up Dot’s MX5 from the coachwork off Hall Road (just far enough off to make it hard to find). It looked immaculate. I then returned the Corsa to Enterprise Car Rentals and was given a lift home. Normally I would have walked from Heigham Street, but the wind was icy and I was carrying a file of documents that I didn’t want to lose.

Because the MX5 was finished early, Dot had to take our Mazda 2 to Kent (the P4C whiteboard won’t get in the MX5), which was a pity because of the additional mileage. Nevertheless, she had a good journey both ways, paying the Dartford Crossing toll online for the first time.

While she was away, Rob came round to discuss his forthcoming tour of Paston Norwich for the Cromer group he is giving a series of talks to. As the group is quite large, he wants me to help. One or two small bits of new stuff to me, but the next day I was coming back from the city when I noticed St George’s Tombland was open; so I popped in to see the dragon. This is the model dragon that’s used for the Lord Mayor’s procession each year, symbolising the Guild of St George, which is linked to Dragon Hall. While at the church (and being given a thorough tour by a kind elderly gentleman) I noticed that it also had a monument to Thomas Anguish by Nicholas Stone, who is well know for various Paston links.

On the same day we had our hair cut – a week after the scheduled date, so not before time. On Friday I had a routine blood test, and it was after that that I walked for a while in the Rosary, which I always find moving. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and thousands of crocuses were blooming, together with a few snowdrops. Did I mention that I had also dropped in my accounts file to Susannah (the St Luke’s treasurer), and later the cheque books and paying-in books? I hope the accountants can make some sense of them.

I did not shoot the Sheriff

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Dot with her friend William
Dot with her friend William

We are now the proud if temporary possessors of a brand new Corsa, lent to us while the MX5 is repaired. I was taken to pick it up from Enterprise in Heigham Street on Friday afternoon. The traffic both ways was so bad that it took nearly an hour altogether, and my driver on the outward journey was not slow to point to the Grapes Hill roundabout as the problem.

The car has been on the drive since then, apart from two short trips – one to church yesterday, and one to the doctor’s today. I would also have driven it to the supermarket, but decided to wait till tomorrow because of the forecast heavy rain that annoyingly failed to materialise. Instead I watched the film Bitter Lake for the second time while Dot watched it for the first time. Still good, and available on iPlayer! It explains everything.

The visit to the doctor was routine, and had the added bonus of revealing a reduction in my blood pressure to 136/88. I had a discussion about the advisability of remaining on two Lanzoprasole tablets: the main reason for the visit. I feel better when on two a day; so naturally I have to try to get it back to one. Last Thursday, in a thinly related health event, I went to the hospital to see a urology nurse, which turned out to be a complete waste of time. She didn’t know why I was there, and nor did I (other than receiving a letter telling me to attend). On the plus side, I seem to be OK. On the minus side, she didn’t like me criticising her inaccurate diagram, and I didn’t like going in half an hour late.

When I got back from the doctor’s today I did some cutting and pulling in the garden to get something in our brown bin, which made me quite tired, but I’m sure it was good for me. Last week was a record as far as walking was concerned. When I say record, I mean the best week in the past month. Even counting Buxton.

Last Friday Dot and I went to a house somewhere in the middle of a field. I think it was Framingham Pigot, but it could have been Bixley or some other, nameless part of South Norfolk. The event was a brunch to celebrate the success of a charity run by one of Dot’s friends, Helen (a former head teacher), which involved collecting sugar for homeless shelters. Don’t ask. Anyway it was a nice event. Helen is lovely, her husband Chris was a nice bloke, and I spent much of the time talking to Sue and Roger Eagle, though not Louise, as Louise pointed out. She is the secretary of the charity, and a nurse, I believe. Probably not urology. The food was excellent.

We had to rush back to get the MX5 in place to be collected by the body repairers. It was duly carted off, and will not be seen again until next week. Dot has arranged for them to do another dent unrelated to the recent car park mishap, which will end up costing us over £300. So that’s all good.

In the evening we went to the centenary dinner of St Augustine’s Hall, which was honoured by the presence of the Sheriff of Norwich, William Armstrong OBE, the former Norwich Coroner who used to go out with Dot when they were both at City College. So obviously she chatted him up. His wife Monica was very nice. Obviously I didn’t chat her up. Or shoot the Sheriff, though I’m saying nothing about his deputy. Nice meal provided by Carrie’s crowd, and I helped with the washing up. The plaque looked good – a rare example of a suggestion of mine coming to fruition.

On Valentine’s Day Dot went to see Norwich City beat Wolves 2-0, which made her happy and relieved that she was not an unmitigated jinx. In the evening I cooked her an M&S meal that I had bought earlier. It came with fizzy stuff and was quite tasty.

On Sunday after church we were prepared to go and see Jessie, but it turned out she was spending the afternoon with Roger; so we stayed in. I walked up to the Rosary while Dot did some sewing. I know that’s hard to believe. Also hard to believe is the fact that I sent off for and have now fixed a new letterbox. It wasn’t easy, of course. The fittings were not quite right (although they looked right on the diagram), and I had to cut off some plastic bits and screw in where nothing had been screwed before. I amaze myself. The cut in my hand was not very deep.

13 January 2006

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Speaking of cars, this the first recorded car in my family. You can just make out my father David in his beloved MG – picture taken by my mother Phyllis on the Nant-Gwynant Pass in Snowdonia. They also took it to Scotland on their honeymoon in about 1937. Other cars of his that I can remember are an early Vauxhall DPW 155, when we lived at 15 Brian Avenue, Norwich and I was about four. Then a Rover and finally a Lea Francis, which he had when he died in 1956.

My mother learned to drive in the early 60s and had two or three Morris 1000s (one at a time). Then a fairly primitive Vauxhall in which we went to Switzerland in 1971. She also had a Renault 5, which I liked a lot, and then later a Metro.  Possibly some others. I learned to drive in her Morris 1000, taught by a friend, David Green, and passed the test without having an official lesson. My wife and son did the same – both taught by me.

My first car was a black Ford Prefect, which I bought for about £100 from the Coomes – friends in London. I could just about service it, after being shown how by the husband of Diane Jones (so Mr Jones, then). She was Jim Douglas’ secretary on Christianity Today magazine in London – sadly died not long ago in Norfolk. The Ford Prefect also went to Switzerland.

We then moved on to an Austin 1100, which I bought from a garage in North London and which I suspect had been in a fairly serious accident. It tended to grind to a halt in wet wheather because of damp on the distributor. Once in Norwich I sold it for £70 and bought a white Fiat 500 for £700 from the Eagle Garage on Newmarket Road. It was a demonstrator. Very rudimentary vehicle which gradually fell apart: I just managed to get it to Pointers on Aylsham Road to pick up its replacement, a red Fiat 127. This was followed by a blue version of the same car, obtained from Woodland Car Sales a couple of years later. I was quite fond of both of them. We then moved upmarket slightly and got a rust-coloured Fiat Strada which was a very heavy vehicle. We swapped this fairly quickly for a Renault 21 –  a lovely car to drive, if not totally reliable. I remember the fuel pump going on the way down to Sussex. This car was “written off” in a slow-speed collision with a Volvo at the junction of Thorn Lane and Rouen Road in Norwich and replaced by a blue Fiat Tipo. This was around 1990.

I wasn’t too impressed with the Tipo – it seemed far too heavy for its size. But in the early 90s I was driving pool cars as part of my job, and one of them was a Mazda 323, with pop-up headlamps. This was such a great car that it was not long before I sold the Tipo and bought one – a red one, from Wrights on Cromer Road. A couple of years later I changed it for a green one, which I kept for many years and which I enjoyed enormously. But eventually it had to go and was replaced by a black 323 Sport at the end of 2002, when I retired.

In September 2004 we bought a black MX5 Euphonic for Dot, who was still working. She retired at the end of 2005; she still has the MX5, but we have now bought a new Mazda 3 Sport – this time blue and a saloon instead of a hatchback. It arrives in March.