Tag Archives: darcy

Losing track of time

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Dot, Sue and Fred on the beach near Beeston
Dot, Sue and Fred on the beach near Beeston

An exceptionally busy week goes by, and the busyness continues. This afternoon I head for Mundesley for a Paston trustees’ meeting, and tomorrow I drive to Coventry to visit Andrew. Fortunately my health continues to improve. But back to the past…

Tuesday last week saw another Archant coffee morning, this one with the addition of Maryta, plus Brian Caldecott and Tricia. Clearly an EDP subs’ takeover is in the offing. Good to see Brian, who looked well although he isn’t (he has rheumatoid arthritis).

Saw Maryta again the next day, when the Hendersons took us on a North Norfolk trip, starting with a longish dog walk at Felbrigg Hall, where we saw frogs mating and enjoyed a light lunch, continuing at Beacon Hill (Roman Camp), where they lost the dog – sadly not permanently; it returned to Dot and me while they were off down the ravine looking for it – and on to Blakeney, where we had a shorter walk and then an excellent afternoon tea at the Blakeney Hotel, overlooking the marshes. Discovered to our surprise that the Hendersons had not been to Blakeney before: that’s what comes of living south of Norwich. Weather fine, with a chilly wind.

On Thursday Dot had a violin lesson with a friend from the orchestra and completely lost track of time, so that I had to ring her and remind her to come home and see Sam, Lucy and Elliott, who had dropped in during a short visit to Norwich. Elliott very smiley and crawly; Sam less so.

On Friday we were off to the north coast again, this time to visit Fred and Sue at Beeston Regis. We visited Cookie’s at Malthouse and the called at the Cley Wildlife centre, which has been much improved, despite being pretty good to start with. Our neighbours the Norfolk Wildlife Trust can’t be short of money. From the centre the marshes looked much more open; most of the trees had disappeared following the tidal surge.

On the way back to Beeston we stopped at Sheringham, where I had a delicious gooseberry ice cream and we watched a girl called Karen lovingly construct a message in stone on the beach to her boyfriend Len (we’re making several assumptions here). Back at Beeston we took a stroll along the beach, where I managed to lose the eyepiece to my binoculars. Again, a lovely dry day, but with a chilly wind in the evening. It even rained on our way home, but that was probably very localised.

On Saturday Dot spent most of the day (if not all of it) preparing for the visit of Chronicle and spouses (Rob, Penny, James, Ann) for an evening meal. This was supposed to include a discussion about the progress were were making on the next Chronicle project, but we had such an interesting discussion on other matters (some theological) that we never got to that. I will raise it today when I see Rob for lunch.

Yesterday I preached a bit, and Eleanor led a Holy Communion in her lovely understated way. Vicky came, as did Ruth and Steve, so we had four children in the congregation. We have discovered that the new vicar is gay, or if not exactly gay, unnecessarily happy. In the afternoon Richard came round with the delightful Maddy and Darcy, and we had an Easter egg hunt followed by other excitement and a certain amount of food. Norwich scored a last-minute goal to beat Bolton, which meant Dot was pretty happy too.

A series of tanka I wrote for Lent has been accepted for inclusion in the spring edition of the Atlas Poetica, published in America. Surprised and delighted.

Crawling into another year

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Amy helping Daddy to relax in Prezzo's
Amy helping Daddy to relax in Prezzo’s

Feeling very down and tired, which is not the ideal start to a new year. Slept very little last night, stirred myself just enough to get Dot a cup of tea at 7.20am before she left for a P4C session at Heather Avenue, then lay awake till after 9.30. Eventually had a bath and crawled downstairs about 11.30am. Cannot work up enthusiasm for anything.

We did have a lovely time with David and the children, managing to do something every day. Last Tuesday (the 30th) we visited Jessie, and on the way there I dropped off and delivered a cheque to Rob Knee, having a brief chat with him and Penny before walking the rest of the way. Cold but moderately invigorating, I seem to remember.

On New Year’s Eve we had a pizza and drink at the Hendersons’ at lunch time. In the evening Roger came round for a meal, and the festivities included the mandatory quizzes – including two very hard photo quizzes from the children which took us up to midnight. There was a brief concert from Queen on TV, with their new (very good) lead singer.

On New Year’s Day, after something of a lie-in, we all went to see The Penguins of Madagascar at the cinema, and I only dozed off once or twice. It was actually quite reasonable, and the children enjoyed it.

The next day Birgit and Joe came round in the morning, and after a light lunch we headed for the Maddermarket to see The Borrowers, which was really excellent, making light of the obvious problems in staging. The actors were superb, and it was just the right length. By accident we got five seats behind each other downstairs, and this caused some concern until it became clear that the adjacent seats were not going to be filled, and so David and the children were able to sit together.

On Saturday Richard, Maddy and Darcy came round both before and after lunch at Prezzo’s, and when they departed in late afternoon, David and the children packed and headed home while we did a bit in the house.

On Sunday we woke to a frozen street, and it took me some time to get the car going. Even when it did it insisted on telling us that the tyre pressure was wrong: not sure yet if this was a result of the cold, or if there is indeed a genuine problem. A visual check revealed nothing obvious.

Rather an odd morning at church, or maybe it was just me. Eleanor, who was presiding at Communion, had a bad cough and so Dot distributed the bread while I sang. Phil was away, as were several other people, but we got a few from Carrie’s group there, plus a Latvian couple who wanted to have their baby baptised. When we left, Anna and a helping group were solving a problem with one of the curtains.

I had a quick look for a stopcock, which Stuart has been writing e-mails about, but couldn’t see anything obvious. Back home I tried to get the new Apple TV to work (David kindly bought it for us at Christmas), but after some partial success failed almost completely. On the plus side, we can now watch YouTube and see Flickr on the TV.

Christmas unwrapped

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An old slide of Dot in the early 1970s with out Fiat 500.
An old slide of Dot in the early 1970s with our Fiat 500 – or was it 600?

Midnight Communion on Christmas Eve was a lovely service, but by the time we emerged at around 12.30 on Christmas morning it was pouring with rain and pretty cold, so my task of fixing notices to the gates and locking them for Christmas Day proved rather less than straightforward, especially as I had to wait until everyone had passed through before locking them.

Christmas Day was – well, Christmas Day, and of course we spent most of it unwrapping, cooking and eating. It was lovely having David and the children with us. Boxing Day was also fun, if a little less frantic. David, Oliver and I went to see Norwich lose 2-1 to Fulham while Dot and Amy went to see Frozen at the cinema. The weather was sunny but cold, though relatively still in between the storms that hit different parts of the country both before  and after Christmas.

On the 27th we had invited Richard Beales and his daughters, Maddison and Darcy, for lunch (chicken curry), and we had a lovely time with them. The children got on well – Oliver (nice boy that he is) looking after Darcy (4) and Amy playing with Maddison (6) after the latter had got over an initial burst of shyness. We found out a lot of background stuff about Richard and the business, and he and David got on well. All of them left at about the same time – around 7.15pm.

The children transferred to Vicky the following day after she had returned from Ireland in a Force 11 gale, but not before they had gone with David to Heathrow to meet Chrissy, who is staying with him for a few days.

I was up fairly early on Saturday to go and fetch Andrew from Coventry. Didn’t feel too well on the way over (I think the fried potato was starting to go off) and the traffic was heavy, so it took about three hours, with a stop at Cambridge Services. The journey back, which ended just after dark, was a bit quicker, and we managed to get home just before the football crowds emerged from Carrow Road, with Norwich having achieved a double home Christmas failure, losing 1-0 to Manchester United.

Yesterday we took Andrew to St Augustine’s for a really nice service led by Phil, with Carrie preaching. Dot read, and I did the prayers. Andrew had a long conversation with Harriet – not sure what about, but probably him – and Anandi and David were there: they are house-sitting for Howard and Anna, who are in Burma with Nicola and Beth. At least, we think they are: they didn’t take their phones.

On the way home we called in to see Joy and Phil, who were under the impression Andrew wasn’t coming home till the next day. Andrew had some presents for them. We stayed only short while because Joy was clearly tired.

In the afternoon Andrew and I walked up to the Rosary, and I was delighted to find that the flowers I’d put on Mum and Dad’s grave before Christmas were still there, despite the strong winds and rain in between. Andrew cleared the area of fallen branches, and we visited one or two other graves of well-known names from the past.

We will leave for Coventry after early lunch today. I am about to go out and get some money for Andrew, and perhaps a present for the staff at Minster Lodge. Louise Robinson has left her car in the drive while she goes to the sales in London. Her idea of heaven (I quote) and mine of hell.