Tag Archives: college

Sudden death of college friend

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Dot's college friends pictured by Pete Stokes at our ruby wedding anniversary. Jan (Pete's wife) is fourth from the right.

Not a happy start to the week: Liz Stabler rang as Dot was leaving the house on Monday and told us that Dot’s college friend Jan Stokes (formerly Kidd) had died 0f cancer. Huge shock: we didn’t even know she was ill. Apparently she herself didn’t know about the cancer until a couple of months ago.

Then we discovered that our nephew Joe has multiple sclerosis: fortunately the less severe kind – intermittent instead of progressive – but still a tremendous blow for him and Birgit, and for his parents.

Third, and rather less seriously, I got a phone call late in the evening from Lucy to tell us that the consort of viols from Cambridge had decided not to play in the evening on June 9, but in the afternoon, thus making a nonsense of all our publicity. Ironically I had distributed some flyers to the tourist information centre, St Peter Mancroft and several businesses on Elm Hill when we checked the venue on Saturday. Ho hum.

The three of us met (with Kay) at Fakenham today to decide what we’d do about it and – mainly – to rehearse the script. The latter went well – Caroline had written a new song – and we decided to just forge ahead and do our own thing in the evening on the 9th, letting the viols get on with it in the afternoon. Out, viol spot.

Dot hasn’t been well, but is now better. We went to a concert by Duke Special at the Open on Sunday night, and she felt ill on the way there and the following day. The concert was nevertheless brilliant: DS is a great live artist and a top songwriter. The Cracknells and Heybournes were also there. We got there about 7.15, but there were two support acts before DS took the stage at about 9.15pm. One of them was local and not my kind of thing at all; the other was Foreign Slippers, who were quirky and pretty good. Great evening: even made Dot feel better, though she relapsed afterwards.

Had our hair cut yesterday, and in the evening Steve Fiske came round to sort out the worship songs for June 10, when the Archdeacon is paying a visit and we have a joint service at St Luke’s. Brought back memories of when we used to play together at St Augustine’s.

After several days of warm sunshine,today is cooler, with rain promised.

5 April 2008

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A not-very-good picture of our church music group in rehearsal last Sunday, featuring Dot on violin, Phil on guitar and Matthew (hidden) on piano. When not on camera, I was on guitar. I’ve been trying to take a few pictures to go on the Norwich Christian Meditation Centre website, with limited success. Inside shots of a large area like a church hall are quite difficult.

We got rid of far more books than I anticipated – probably over 100 – and also managed to extricate the small bookcase from its inaccessible position under the stairs and reposition it on the landing. This opens up more space for books and also looks quite nice. Good week for clearing out: Dot spent yesterday afternoon doing the garden after the arrival of our £35-a-year brown wheelie bin for garden rubbish. She’s pretty much filled it. I’ve also got through a lot of the large pile of newspapers and magazines that were waiting to be read, and my in tray is looking almost manageable. We now also have all the new lights ready to be installed: Dot has phoned the electrician, but is pessimistic about whether he will ring back as he promised to fix a date.

I have booked a hotel in York for later this month, when we are planning to see a play and spend a day looking round the city. I’ve also booked the train tickets, and on that one journey alone have made the purchase of our senior railcards worthwhile. Today we head south for Surrey, where we are spending the night in a hotel before attending the ruby wedding celebration of one of Dot’s college friends at Leatherhead Golf Club. A little bit worried about this, because after two or three days of warm and very pleasant weather, snow is forecast again – especially in the area we will be tomorrow when we travel from Leatherhead to Caddington to stay the night before bringing Oliver back home with us. It’s rather critical we get home by 4pm Monday, because I’ve written a reference for one of my former students, who is picking it up from me then: like most former students, she is trying to meet a deadline that is almost impossible.

On Thursday after taking the books to a charity shop (and picking up our new sofa cushions from Multiyork and taking some glass to the recycling centre at Waitrose) we paid our monthly visit to Park Farm for lunch – and a new ear-piercing event for Dot, who had been having trouble with the previous attempt. Then in Norwich we revisited one of our banks (a former building society) to sort out the chaos that had ensued from our previous visit. I think we’re OK now, subject to their updating my ISA without incident. In the evening a lengthy PCC meeting, at which potential conflict over use of buildings was averted by a brilliant and inspired speech from Paul on what church buildings were actually for.

Today Dot is meeting Anne in the city at 11am before “rushing” back to leave for Surrey. Anne’s daughter has just got engaged, and our Italian friend Eugenia has had a baby girl – Francesca. Almost as excitingly, our free national bus passes have arrived, together with the train tickets for York. There will be no holding us now.