Tag Archives: ethel

Idyllic evening at Wells

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Nearing Wells beach. East Hills in the background.
Nearing Wells beach. East Hills in the background.

Norwich City have just gone 1-0 up against West Ham and then been pegged back to 1-1. It’s half time. Dot has just finished doing some sorting in the garage, I’ve pruned the roses in the front and we’ve both been into the city to purchase a white board that will stick on the wall (for p4c). On the way we met Mairead, who was about to go to London for an overnight celebration of Freddie’s 13th birthday, and Martin and Lena, who are about to go to Thailand on holiday following the death of Lena’s mother in St Petersburg.

Death is in the air: June Wallace has died, and we will be heading to Ipswich for her funeral on Wednesday. Ethel’s funeral last Wednesday went off very well. It was sunny, and the little church at Bracon Ash looked beautiful. The vicar was excellent, and I read a poem written by Dot’s mum. David came up from Caddington and was able to stay for the reception at Park Farm Hotel in Hethersett. The Hendersons also came but left Park Farm before the food after they realised there were plenty of people there (Angela had worried there would be too few). Spoke to most people, especially Donna and Andy and Ian and Tina Limmer.

Not many more  people turned up the following day for the Archant summer tea party at Dunston Hall: probably about 50, against more than 100 for the average Christmas dinner (now discontinued). The food was nice, and I sat at a round table that included Julie Bedson, Frances Pearce, three printers and the new CEO, Jeff Henry, a Scot who is very easy to talk to. Frances Dyer and Ann Gilliam (formerly Walsh) were at the next table with Terry Reeve, but that about made up the total of those I knew well enough to talk to. No EDP subs at all.

Lot of eating this week: Cake and Compline on Monday at Claire Carrington’s, and cake and fish and chips for Dot and me at Wells yesterday. The cake followed our purchase of a Godfrey Sayers painting at the quayside gallery, and the fish and chips (shared) followed a subsequent walk from the town to the beach. The tide was very high, and the sea was calm. Bubbles of gas or air were rising to the surface by the boardwalk on the main beach, and we watched the sun glinting off fishing vessels returning to harbour. Pretty idyllic really. (Final score 2-2.)

A long look at the loft (and the garage)

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Auntie Ethel, who died yesterday, aged 91.
Auntie Ethel, who died yesterday, aged 91.

Very, very wet today. Drove Dot down to the Scole Inn for 10.30, where she met Barbara, and they proceeded in Barbara’s car to St Helen’s for a P4C session tomorrow. Made good time despite the weather.

Yesterday was exciting: I went to church in the morning while Dot cooked a roast chicken lunch for David and the children, who arrived separately. David drove up from Caddington, but the children had spent the night at the Wensum Valley Hotel, following a wedding  at Reepham the day before (Kerry from Bury), involving a train and a drone taking pictures. Vicky dropped them off and picked them up again at 3pm after lunch and a quick game of Dixit, which they had bought me for my birthday.

David also bought me three books and a protective screen for my iPhone. Amy and Oliver also brought me some biscuits from France.

After the children had gone David went through loads of stuff in the garage and loft with us, looking for stuff he wanted us to keep, and stuff we could get rid of. The latter was in the majority. He left quite late.

Dot’s Aunt Ethel has died. It was quite sudden in the end. Angela rang during lunch yesterday to say she was not well, and when she spoke to Dot later, it was all over. No doubt there will be chaos over the will: no-one knows if she made one or, if she did, where it might be.

Straightening out

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P1110289

Very soggy indeed outside: the whole month has been pretty wet, and I suspect our forthcoming weekend at Buxton may feature some quite muddy walking. Still, you never know.

I’ve been straightening out the office, which is quite satisfying. I am still treasurer of the church, but I’m not sure how long that will go on. Howard is trying to open a new account, as far as I know. He preached on the financial situation on Sunday and did it quite well, though I always feel uneasy about that sort of thing.

I’ve been in touch with Andrew’s care worker, Elaine, who seemed quite surprised about his funding situation. Apparently no-one had told her; so I’m not sure what the finance department of Coventry City Council is up to. She is now trying to get some sense out of them. Best of luck to her.

Ethel, her friend John and Dot's new top feature in the cake-cutting
Ethel, her friend John and Dot’s new top feature in the cake-cutting

It poured with rain for Ethel’s 90th birthday party on Sunday. It took place at her care home in Welborne and was attended by the usual suspects: Angela, Rodney, Vicki and Graham; Roger and Rosie; Tally’s daughter-in-law Ann and her son Rob, who is a carpenter. I remember this because she told me several times. Dot had arranged for Marion to make a sponge cake – beautiful as always – and a fruit cake appeared from elsewhere. A jolly time was had by all.

The Paston exhibition has come to an end after three months. Dot managed to get Anne there on the last day, but the story goes on. Yesterday Rob and I visited the UEA for a talk with Dr Karen Smyth about her new project on the Pastons, which will start small and get a a lot of input from us but eventually build up to a digital heritage monster that could attract as much as £1 million in grant or research money.

The good news is that the work we do for it in the initial stages (and possibly later on as well) will be paid for; so maybe all that voluntary work we’ve done over the years will eventually reap its reward. Other than the reward implicit in doing it, of course.

Following that meeting, Caroline joined us for a Chronicle meeting and lunch – prepared by Dot despite the fact that the school she’s governor of is in the midst of Ofsted. She left later to be interviewed by the inspector. We had a good meeting: I sang my song, and Caroline read her poems, and we planned a way forward. I am going to work on a structure for the new performance (based on Oxnead), and Rob is going to try to get the owners of the Hall interested enough to host it.

We have managed to visit the cinema three Mondays in a row, which is amazingly consistent for us. Following Hobbit 2 and Gravity, we went to see American Hustle, which was excellent in many ways, but still not quite as good as the other two. The fact that it’s based on a true story possibly made it a little less neat than it might have been. As Tom Clancy says, the difference between fact and fiction is that fiction has to make sense.

Tuesday Group was at the Archers this week, and I had a carload, taking Judy, Ian and Harriet through pouring rain (Dot was preparing for Ofsted). We are considering dropping TG for a while and inviting different people round as part of a new church project. But we want to keep seeing David and Bridget and Vicky, who no longer attend St Augustine’s, so we’ll probably invite them too. Anyway, we’re still thinking about it.

My tanka book with Joy McCall has just been published, and I’m picking up some copies later. It’s on Amazon, but with the disturbing note that it’s not available, and they don’t know when it will be. I hope someone sorts that out. Not me, obviously.

David and Chrissy take a look at Norfolk

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Dot takes a break during our walk to St James Hill, Mousehold

Well, eventually the gas man cameth and fixed our problem – unsurprisingly a sticky valve. Again. And I got to speak to Andrew on his birthday, though he was rather vague. The next day (Wednesday) things looked up considerably, as David and Chrissy arrived for a three-day stay. They largely organised their own activities, but we took them to Prezzos (unfortunately not at their best), and on the Friday we all went to see Jessie at North Walsham. We also shared several meals at home, and it was lovely having them with us.

On the Thursday, while they were out in south-east Norfolk, I went to visit Geoff in hospital and was encouraged to find him upbeat and making good progress. His right side is still largely paralysed, though he can move his foot and thumb, and he can sit up with help. He can talk (though he has trouble remembering some words) and he can swallow. His toes are a bit of a mess with gangrene (caused by lack of circulation during his operations), but apparently this will sort itself out. He looked more like his old self. Sophie was also in good spirits. The hope is that he will move to the Colman Hospital for rehabilitation this week.

Also had a committee meeting about the parish share in the evening, which was rather depressing. We need to find quite a bit more money next year, but everyone then talks as if we’re running a business and need to behave accordingly. I find this very difficult. Paul: “We’ve been asked to go over into Macedonia to help people there, but unfortunately we probably won’t have enough money; so we’ve decided against it.” End of New Testament. It’s probably just me.

On Friday the car went in again to have the air conditioning looked at, and it turns out that this is more serious than we thought. So it’s going in again on Thursday to have a new condenser fitted. Another £300 down the drain – or in the radiator.

David and Chrissy stayed on until late Saturday, which was a nice surprise, and on Sunday it seemed very quiet. In the afternoon Dot and I walked through the Rosary and up to Mousehold. Clouds threatened showers, but nothing happened.

Yesterday we went out to Park Farm. I had been intending to go for a walk while Dot had her session, but it started raining on the way there, so I decided against. In fact the rain didn’t really materialise, but it was too late: I had ordered the food. Afterwards we went to see Aunt  Ethel at Welborne. She seemed very well, perhaps because she has begun to eat. Quite coherent and clearly in a better state than many of the other people there. It’s a nice setting, but sitting in rows in a lounge is never very stimulating.

Meanwhile poor Barbara M has been moving too fast again, and this time has done herself serious injury, falling down the stairs into the basement and fracturing her pelvis, not to mention various bruising and lots of pain. She is going to find it hard having her movements restricted over the nest few months. I imagine Roger will find it hard too, in a different way.

I have made some progress on writing Amy’s story, which I’m quite pleased with.

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.

The women, not the drugs

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Dot in the grounds of the UEA during a recent walk. Can’t explain the sun.

Not a week that will trouble my top ten. For some reason I was feeling down at the start of it, and this was exacerbated when I got a good position in my chess game on Monday and, needing only a draw for a team win, proceeded to lose concentration completely and go under very quickly in a pawns-and-bishop ending.

The week “ended” with a visit to the doctor yesterday. My blood pressure has gone down – thanks to my daily walks – but he still thinks I need another pill, as well as some work on my arm/shoulder, which has been giving me trouble. At the moment I am resisting the additional pill (I didn’t take it this morning) but he thinks I’m taking it, which is not the best situation. He is working on statistics, which I don’t have the greatest faith in.

I also messed up Thursday, when I could have gone to see the new Archbishop at the Forum and/or the Cathedral, followed by Sam S playing with his band, The Upgrade, at the Waterfront in the evening. Both opportunities were squandered in typical fashion. Instead, I got a mysterious call from A Ethel’s number in the evening while Dot was at a governors’ meeting, and when I tried to ring back (the call ended after a couple of rings) it just rang and rang. After consulting with Angela, I went with Dot (who had just got home) to see what the problem was and found Ethel sitting on a chair in her petticoat, with the apparently broken phone in her hands and saying she hadn’t rung us. So that was fine. No, it really was.

In other news, I have managed to complete a flyer for the Dragon Hall day, barring a few minor additional bits of information. On Monday I went with Rob to the Norfolk Record Office for a progress meeting for the autumn exhibition there, and that went quite well. Lucy couldn’t go as she is in a bad way with another infection and a bad prognosis from her doctor.

My nephew Sam stayed with us for a couple of nights, but spent most of the time with his parents, of course, organising the purchase of a new laptop for Joy and a new gaming computer for Phil. It was Phil’s birthday on Tuesday: he is 61. I got him a CD he requested, some wine and a rather esoteric book about remote islands which took my fancy in Waterstones.

I’ve finished a biography of Leonard Cohen – I’m Your Man, by Sylvie Simmons – which was beautifully written and compulsive, as well as telling me various things about LC that I didn’t know. I had an idea about the number of women, but not the quantity of drugs. That’s where I went wrong.

I e-mailed the UEA lecturer who spoke to us about translation and attached my “translation” of the Lord’s Prayer from Aramaic. She asked me to do a guest blog on it, which can’t be bad.

Natural break … Just had our hair cut, and this evening we are participating in a Quiz and Chips Night as part of the Roger Mason-Liz French-George-and-Fiona team. Jude is setting the questions, so it should be interesting.

Key in the safe, and silver missing

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And so we inch up to the end of the year – quite slowly, in fact, as it’s not far off 11am, and I’m the only one downstairs. Of course we all need the rest. We haven’t been venturing out much because of the inhospitable weather, but there has been plenty of action indoors, mainly connected with gadgets of one sort or another, but occasionally new games invented by Amy, plus bursts of Carcassonne, Dixit and Coppit. Very pleased with my iPhone4, and Dot is rapidly becoming part of her iPhone5.

We had a particularly nice evening meal yesterday, which turned into a game of I-Spy and lots of laughter. Earlier we’d been to see Auntie Ethel, who noticed that the children had got much taller. She noticed this many times during our short visit, and tried hard to get us to eat something, but as we’d just had a sizeable lunch, no-one could be tempted. She seemed quite well physically.

On Sunday Amy was much exercised as tho whether she should go to church or not, but in the end decided against. So Dot and I went on our own. I preached a sermon on how we are liberated by being forgiven. Slight consternation when we discovered the key in the safe door and the silver missing, but in the end it turned out that Nicholas had placed the silver elsewhere and forgotten to lock the safe after the Midnight Communion on Saturday. Ho, hum.

On Saturday David and the children had been planning a visit to the Coomes at Bishop’s Stortford, but Jane rang early on with the news that Alistair had been ill or night, so this was abandoned. I spent quite a lot of time writing my sermon, but the others played a lot of games and amused themselves otherwise. Oliver and I also prepared a quiz for tonight. I hope I can remember the answers.

 

Farewell to Joan Beales

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Peter and Joan’s wedding

The remnants of summer hung on for Joan Beales’ funeral at Attleborough on Friday. When the sun was out it was pleasant, but dark clouds brought a bit of a chill, which penetrated the church and brought a shiver to the cemetery. We arrived early, which was just as well because the car park was already full and we were lucky to find a slot where someone was just leaving.

So we were in the church over half an hour early, sitting at the back of the central section, in front of Rosie and Billy Wright. It then got rather confusing, because Angela arrived and said that Peter wanted us down the front. Because there wasn’t a huge amount of space there, and we didn’t want the immediate family to run out of seats, Angela and Dot sat at the front together, with me sitting further back next to Rodney, and Vicki elsewhere. Not ideal, especially as the funeral directors produced an extra row of seats which went unused.

It was a lovely service, though, with a really nice and thorough eulogy from Margaret White, a friend of Joan’s from her acting group. There were also recordings of Joan singing and then Laura singing (Fields of Gold). The burial was at the cemetery, across the car park, and we then went to a reception at Peter Beales Roses. The rain held off, and we enjoyed food, punch and conversation with other members of the family, including Donna, who had made the trip from Wolverhampton that morning and was returning to see a show in Birmingham in the evening. That’s what I call a full day.

At the reception I kept expecting Joan to come round every corner. She was a lovely woman, and will be much missed. Afterwards Dot and I called in on Auntie Ethel, who was understandably upset that she hadn’t been able to go. But it would have been too difficult. We were relieved after a while by Angela and Rodney, who had been to Waitrose.

Yesterday, while Dot was in the city, talking to Anne and buying a new suitcase, I finished sorting out my old chess games (up to a point) and wrote an article for En Passant, featuring the game I won for the school chess championship in 1962!  After a bad night with a dodgy stomach, I delivered my sermon this morning and then – with help from Howard and Phil – cleared up some paint that had been thrown over the paving stones outside the hall. As autumn finally arrived in early afternoon, with a chill heavy rain, Dot and I  decided to stay in the house for the rest of the day, spending part of it rewriting stuff on Dot’s P4C page, using html.

Encounter with a songwriter

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Andy Martin, of Astral Void, by the Bure at Oxnead Hall

October dawned very warm and sunny, but is now showing signs of slipping into autumn: a cooler feel to the weather, leaves on the ground, a strongish wind, and snow forecast for Scotland. Still quite pleasant, though, and it was very warm for Dot’s Dutch trip, which went well on the whole: it was quite a major event, and their workshops were full. The journey also passed almost without incident, if you overlook their not being able to find the car at Stansted when they got back – a purely temporary aberration.

I have been working hard on a couple of books: finishing off the Norfolk poems book – Words in a Landscape – with David, and getting the material together for Another Country – our next Paston publication. This comes to a head on Friday, when I meet with Rob Knee to decide what it will look like. The artists have suddenly come up with material, so the decisions may be harder than predicted.

Readers will I am sure be delighted and astonished in equal measure to hear that the rogue Humax has been working perfectly for several days. And Dropbox has finished its mammoth uploading of my picture files. Quite a relief.

Went to a concert at St Andrew’s Hall on Saturday. Vicki Ellis was on piccolo in the first two pieces and sat out the third with us. Apparently Dvorak has little use for piccolos. Nice to see her and her parents. Nick and Jan Miller were also there. Aunt E has been proving difficult over the last few days, calling out all and sundry, sometimes several at once. Dot has been out there today and was there yesterday too. E was not strong enough to make the planned visit to North Walsham with Dot yesterday, so I went instead, and had a rather nice meal with Dot’s mother’s cousin Sheila, her daughter Teresa, Teresa’s daughter Anna, and Anna’s son Harry (aged 18 months and very keen on tomatoes). That’s four generations in one room. Teresa (our bridesmaid 43 years ago) made a rather lovely raspberry-flavoured, crispy pastry dessert with almonds to round it all off, the only downside being that I then had to make a meal for the Tuesday Group while Dot went to the Nafpht annual meeting at the Ram, Tivetshall. Didn’t really feel hungry. Don’t know why.

On the way home from North Walsham we stopped to look at the church and hall at Oxnead (Paston connection), and encountered a young musician who was looking for the river so that he could get some songwriting inspiration. We walked down to the Bure with him and had a chat about the Pastons and other things. Turned out he was Andy Martin, guitarist and singer for Norwich-based band Astral Void, who I tracked down on the internet afterwards. Interesting.

On Sunday afternoon I decided to go over to Horsford to catch the end of the Norfolk Chess Championships. Glad I did: always get a warm welcome from chess people, and there were a couple of interesting games and anecdotes. In the end Mike Gough won by boring Mervyn Hughes into making a mistake, thus depriving Charlie Fry of his first overall victory. Watched a fascinating win by Dave Hall over Ron Hughes and was pleased to say I saw the winning moves in advance. Always easier when you’re watching.

Acting independently

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Andrew at Winterton

Andrew is safely back in Coventry, and The Langleys have just rung to say they’re getting him a new bus pass and would like his National Insurance number. The rest of the weekend passed in a bit of a haze as far as I was concerned. Three of us made it to a really excellent meal at the Rushcutters (Andrew, Phil and myself). Dot was too ill with tonsillitis and is only now on the road to recovery, having been to see a nurse practitioner on Monday morning. The latter was shocked at the state of Dot’s throat and prescribed her some penicillin, which she has been taking and which seems to have worked efficiently.

It was with some trepidation that I embarked on Sunday. Phil didn’t feel able to take Andrew to Surrey after their plumbing ordeal had left both him and Joy very tired; so he came with me to St Augustine’s, and this went surprisingly well, even though I was the sole member of the worship group as well as preaching and leading the intercessions. He sat himself away from me and chatted to other members. I didn’t feel I had prepared the sermon very well, but I got a good response from people, so I presume God had been acting independently of me, as it were. Spent the rest of the day looking after Dot and Andrew, though he and I did venture out for a walk up to the Rosary. Didn’t walk very far, but he seemed quite tired.

On Monday after taking Dot to the nurse (which consumed over an hour), I took Andrew for a drive to Winterton. We fitted in a two-mile walk, but again he seemed tired, which is surprising for someone who apparently does long walks at home. Phil had recovered enough to drive us to Coventry, which was a bit of a relief, and the roads were good, probably because we didn’t leave till after 3pm and had a meal at Thrapston; so our return journey was in the evening, and traffic was light. On the way out we dropped off some sugar at Ethel’s. Sweet, or what? She looked surprisingly well.

Worked on financial matters most of yesterday, but did manage a two-mile walk. I’m trying to fit in a walk every day: today I went to the bank and would have taken a more circuitous route home if it hadn’t started to rain. Dot is up and has done some washing, but I am keeping a close eye to make sure she doesn’t overdo it.