Tag Archives: dragon hall

Looking over my shoulder

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Chronicle in action at Dragon Hall. From left, Rob Knee, Caroline Gilfillan, Kay Riggs, Tim Lenton

Well, it happened. Reading the Pastons dawned sunny and reasonably warm last Friday, and everything fell into place. The speakers all turned up and did a good job; I operated the laptop for the pictures and struggled through after one or two initial blips. The two performances by Chronicle (the first to about 25-30, the second to half a dozen) went well and got good feedback. The exhibition and re-enactors performed well.

Dot brought Jessie, and Jude came too. From church Ray and Christine were joined by David Archer. At least two people came from London, including a man who used to be admired by Dot at primary school; unfortunately she wasn’t feeling well enough to chat him up: her catarrh lingered on, and still does to a much lesser extent. Anna’s sister Nicola also put in an appearance.

In the afternoon a number of USAF children came and joined in the re-enacting as well as one or two other things. The favourable weather meant that we could spill into the garden and was also good for Rob’s tour of the Norwich Paston sites. For more information, click here.

Afterwards Dot and I had a meal with Jessie back at 22, and we then took her home, continuing on to Paston to deliver various items to the Barn. Lucy was still not too good (she hadn’t been well enough to come), but she showed us details of a couple of houses in Bacton she was interested in.

Elizabeth had left her memory stick behind, so on Saturday I delivered it to her home in Little Melton before driving dow to see nephew Joe’s photos at a New Buckenham Photo Exhibition. Liked his stuff very much, and there were other good photos on show too. Dot would have enjoyed it, but she was still suffering a bit, so didn’t come. Bought some cards.

From New Buckenham I drove across country via Hapton and Hempnall to Ditchingham, where I picked up Joy from her retreat house. Arrived a bit early (I hadn’t been sure how long it would take), but Joy was pretty much ready. Drove her home, buying some milk on the way.

Meanwhile Andrew had taken a turn for the worst and was sectioned because they felt he wasn’t in a position to remain at the hospital voluntarily. Apparently he has been quite hostile to staff. I decided to go over to see him on the Monday, partly because I was worried about what was happening to his stuff. In the end I didn’t go because A Ethel was taken ill and had to go into hospital, where she remains. Dot and I saw her last night in the company of Angela and Rodney, who returned here afterwards for coffee.

I managed to get in touch with one of the carers (Paul), who assured me that Andrew’s stuff was being taken care of, and I’ve now decided to go over next Monday, in the company of Phil, who had been in Southampton last week while Joy was in Ditchingham. I spent most of yesterday dealing with church money and taking it to the bank, then sending out invoices for hall use. We also finally got a visit from a gas person, who serviced our system. It was OK, though of course we were urged to buy a new boiler, and of course we didn’t.

Today I shall be heading to the hospital shortly for an x-ray on my left shoulder. Or a look over my shoulder, you might say.

On the brink of a major event

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One of my former homes – 191 Beanfield Avenue, Coventry (early 1950s)

We’re on the brink. Tomorrow is our major, much-anticipated Reading the Pastons event at Dragon Hall, organised largely by me and therefore the cause of much disquiet in my brain over many weeks. Who will turn up? Too few? Too many? The announcement I thought I had put in the event section of the EDP wasn’t there this morning, but according to Sarah at Dragon Hall there have been quite a few inquiries. So we’ll see.

Today I went out to Paston to collect various items for the event, such as the content of the bookstall, some costumes and some exhibition boards. Lucy was in a pretty bad state and will probably not come tomorrow. Rob also brought some stuff from the Barn and we both found our way to DragonHall by about 4pm. Also there: Anna and Elizabeth, two of our three speakers, who brought their Powerpoint presentations to see if they worked. They didn’t at first, but I think Sarah has it under control. (Elizabeth also brought Karen’s.)

After that had been sorted, I helped Sarah put out the tables and chairs, having mistakenly allowed Rob to go, thinking the heavy moving would take place tomorrow morning. Ah well. Home by 6pm, and Dot did me steak and chips. She is very much better, although still suffering bouts of coughing.

I eventually remembered to get my blood test results, and I have now reached almost exactly five years since my operation without showing any signs of a relapse. My PSA is still less than 0.1. Haven’t been feeling 100%, but that’s brilliant news. Rang up Warwick Hospital today, and Andrew seems to be much improved. Joy M, however, has been in a lot of pain, but still manages to produce some good poetry, and we’re continuing our  tanka series.

Joy L has been at Ditchingham all week, in retreat while Phil spends some time in Southampton. I took her there on Monday, and we spent some time looking for Lavinia House, but got there in the end. I stayed for a cup of tea with her and the woman in charge of the guest house, Barbara.

Because of Dot’s illness we had no Tuesday Group this week. Yesterday I had lunch (chicken soup, bread and cheese) with Rob and Penny at North Walsham to discuss the sections we’re putting together for the Paston DVD, and then Caroline and Kay arrived for a Chronicle rehearsal. Made a few slight changes, but it went pretty well. We’re performing it twice tomorrow.

Not stringing her along

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Jack Earl at 100. One of the others is his eldest daughter, Loveday.

Dropped Dot at Elm Hill on Thursday morning, where she met a violin man (sounds like the beginning of a folk song) who told her her violin was worth quite a lot of money and he would certainly bring it up to scratch for her. Meanwhile, he has lent her one that is unusable, so this morning at church she switched back to her electric violin, which worked well. Later in the day our piano tuner, Joe Logan, vouched for the guy, so that’s OK. He was not stringing her along.

Between violin and piano I called in at Dragon Hall to tidy up some loose ends concerning the Dragon Hall day next month. Sarah Power is very upbeat and bouncy, so I was feeling quite encouraged by the time I left. Dot and I went to Park Farm for lunch, which was even more relaxing: long time since we’d done that. In the evening Dot went to Little Plumstead, where she’s a governor, and my Find-a-Friend iPhone tracking device played up to such an extent that I got quite worried. It had her in the middle of a field for a long time. She assured me she wasn’t, and as she was still apparently in the middle of the same field after she’d been home for a while, I totally believe her.

On Friday, while Dot was at a Nafpht conference losing her glasses and the weather was getting more springlike, I created  an account on Twitter for Margaret Paston and then spent a couple of hours wondering around taking pictures of Paston sites for my talk in a couple of weeks’ time. In the evening we went to the Hostry for the launch of a new edition of a Robert Llewellyn book on Julian. Liz French was there, as were Nicholas and Heather and of course Tim Mace. Nice refreshments; interesting event.

But it couldn’t compete with Saturday’s event, which was a party celebrating Jack Earl’s 100th birthday. We arrived at Sea Marge Hotel, Overstrand, in bright sunshine quite early and helped with the balloons, as well as getting tea and coffee. Jack looked unsurprisingly frail, but was relatively fit and clear-headed. He gave a short speech in reply to his son John and survived the photographs. We spoke  to Nicola and Andy among others (Edna Jones, who lives at the Great Hospital, plus the owners of the home where Jack lives, plus various Earl relations).

Jonathan left early to go to the football match – a critical encounter with Reading. We left just before 3pm, and Dot managed to reach Carrow Road in time for the second half. Just as well. It was 0-0 at half-time, but her arrival sparked two quick goals and City eventually edged out 2-1 ahead. Are they safe? Who knows?

After church this morning Dot and I drove out to Mangreen to see if we could find her glasses, but without any success. Had a brief chat with William and Naomi, then came home for lunch. I sat in the garden and read some material that had backed up; so it must have been quite warm. Got chilly later, though.

Walking with Australians

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Diane Jackman Lee reads her poem out at the end of the poetry-art workshop at Dragon Hall. Completed work on board.

My talk at St Luke’s on our relationship with Creation went well after a slow start: the group of 8-10 were eventually persuaded to be responsive, and actually got very enthusiastic about my paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer from the Aramaic, which made a good ending. Came away feeling quite pleased after not knowing quite what to expect.

Other things that turned out well: Roger came round to deliver a birthday present for Dot, and I had a brief chat with him about the dodgy radiators. As a result tried a couple of things that didn’t work but then had a determined go at bleeding them (I had tried before without success). After quite a bit of spillage one worked; the other didn’t. Not to be thwarted, I then had a go at removing and refixing the valve cover that adjusts the heat and managed to get it back on properly. Result: two working radiators, and I’ve now cancelled the engineer’s visit.

And I was relieved to find only two people on the Paston walk this morning – a couple of western Australians who knew nothing at all about the Pastons and not much about Norwich. So it was easy for me, and even St Peter Hungate opened for our visit as promised. Not sure about the Paston Week as a whole: attendance has been sparse and the organisation a little inaccurate at times. I expected far more to be on Rob’s walk, which started two hours after mine today, but he only had one person!

Yesterday before helping the re-enactors to set up at Dragon Hall I managed about 90 minutes in the city, paying in cheques, booking theatre tickets and dropping in a poetry book for Keiron in the hope of getting a little publicity. I also managed to buy a birthday card and something else for Dot. After the Dragon Hall set up I met Dot at the supermarket to stock up for the Evetts’ visit next week.

This afternoon I arrived home to find Phyllis Seaman visiting with a birthday card. Afterwards (and after Norwich lost 1-2 to Arsenal) Dot and I had a game of table tennis and then cleared the garage so that we could get Dot’s car in next week. So a few toys made the return journey to the loft.

Chasing the Dragon Hall

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A quiet corner at the Dragon Hall private view

A productive day today. Finished off the talk on Creation that I’m giving at St Luke’s tonight, plus an outline of the sermon I’m giving on Sunday. Also laminated the walk sheets for Saturday and completed a Gift Aid form, which I was suddenly able to access via Firefox, having failed for weeks on Safari. I’ve also suggested some hymns for Sunday, read the meter and rang British Gas to fix an appointment for them to look at our two dodgy radiators. And it’s still only 4.37pm! Of course I did have to give Lucy’s talk at Dragon Hall a miss, but I have heard it before.

Also I’ve been on Paston/Dragon Hall business for the last couple of days, running an art/poetry workshop with Annette. Most of the poetry part was on Tuesday, and we had only two people taking part – one of whom had done it before at Oxburgh (but liked it so much she wanted to do it again), and the other was on the Dragon Hall staff. I think they would have cancelled it, but because of an administrative error they had booked Diane Lee (née Jackman – hence the error) in twice. So it was pretty relaxed: I took them for a walk round Norwich, calling in at the Castle Museum, where my friend Anna gave them (and me) an amazing insight into a picture called The Paston Treasure. Oh, and they did write a couple of poems.Yesterday I was there for the start and finish, but left Annette to it for the rest of the day.

The Paston Week at Dragon Hall started on Monday evening unless you were one of the select group setting up the exhibition on Sunday afternoon. I was: Diana and I took control of the exhibition boards, and the result was, I have to say, pretty good – largely because Diana is a primary school teacher and is very good at practical stuff like setting up displays. However, I was very supportive…

The private view on Monday was a huge success: guest of honour was Sir Henry Paston-Bedingfeld from Oxburgh Hall, and I introduced the new poetry book. The five of us read a couple of poems each, and I snuck an extra small one – Magic – in at the end. The audience was very appreciative, and Sarah from Dragon Hall did a great job organising refreshments and indeed everything else. Lucy didn’t make it, unfortunately, because she was pretty tired out after “appearing” on radio with Sarah earlier in the day.

Earlier in the day too I had paid another visit to St Augustine’s Hall, this time to help Tony install a light. Pretty straightforward, this time, though I had to wait while he went and bought one. Fortunately the weather this week has been good, though cooler.

The other major event in the past few days was of course the concert by Adam Cohen at the UEA. Dot recovered enough to go (she is still not 100%), but it was annoying to have to stand in a queue for a quarter of an hour after the time the concert was supposed to have started, especially as we’d bought tickets in advance. On the plus side, Adam came out and had a brief chat while we waited.

The LCR was set out in cafe style – informal – and the whole event was quite intimate, with AC laughing so much at one point that he was unable to sing one song (Like a man). He was backed by Mai Bloomfield on guitar and cello (not both at once) and a multi-instrumental guy. The sound wasn’t brilliant, but he came over well and sang just about all the songs on his latest album as well as his father’s So Long, Marianne. Mai Bloomfield did an opening set that was sweet but not extraordinary.

I think they were both a bit bemused at the quietness of the audience. They wouldn’t have been if they were sitting where I was, with a guy behind talking incessantly all the way through. Good, though. Very glad I went: I bought the CD afterwards. Whoops. Just remembered to remove it from my wish list on Amazon.