David, Chrissy and the grandchildren have come and gone. It was a rather unusual visit that seemed to pass too quickly. It opened with a bang: Dot arranged an Arbonne party at the house for Wednesday evening, to which many of her friends were invited. Parking problems were surmounted through the use of chauffeurs (Julia), remote parking (Anne and Bridget) and my positioning the MX5 in Rosary Road to make room for Sue and Judy. Too much detail, I hear you say.
The party seemed to go well, though I’m not sure how financially successful it was: in any case there is a suspicion that most of the friends came to see Chrissy, David and the grandchildren. I can hardly blame them for that. I should make clear that it is Chrissy who is the Arbonne consultant, not Dot.
The weather has been warm, and some of the party was in the garden. On the Thursday Dot and I took the children to Winterton, one of their favourite spots, where we had a late lunch at the cafe and followed it up by some hide-and-seek in the dunes, which my ankle stood up to reassuringly well. Even Dot was able to move about a bit 🙂 We also spent some time on the beach, when all of us paddled.
While we did this, David and Chrissy were doing my Norwich Paston walk, partly as a test for some software he’s writing. They appeared not to get lost. There was also a great deal of table tennis played, with Oliver improving visibly as the three days progressed. In the end he was beating both Dot and me. Amy spent a lot of time watching some kind of drama on her small screen, and did not welcome intruders.
L:ate on the Friday David and Chrissy took my car to Suffolk to visit a cousin of Chrissy’s. Earlier Richard had called round coincidentally and was able to talk to David about websites and similar matters.
The Caddington contingent returned home on Saturday just after lunch, following a visit to Hobbycraft and Morrisons and an unsuccessful search for a Mr Whippy. Sorry, Amy. The journey went well – probably a good time to travel.
After a rest in the afternoon, Dot and I went next door for a meal. Much of it was in the back garden, the weather still being very warm. But it ended in a thunderstorm: we rushed home to take washing off the line when we saw the lightning, but returned for another half an hour. Good food and drink and some enjoyable conversation, mainly philosophical 🙂
But this thunderstorm was nothing compared to the one that hit Norwich yesterday afternoon. We had been to church, where I preached on God being with us, and were sitting watching television when there was a huge, prolonged cloudburst. It wasn’t long before water came into our living room again. It seemed to come down the walls, but there was more on the floor than seemed to be indicated by marks on the walls. We got the towels out again and mopped it up.
Next door had flooding in the bathroom, and are having a builder round tomorrow. He is popping in to see us too.
In the evening Dot and I went to Lowestoft for a Seagull performance. We read a tanka series together and then I read a couple of my other poems which were well received, especially by Kaaren Whitney, who wants me to read at some other place in Suffolk in August. Uniquely, there was a guest poet, Rodney Pybus, who was pretty good, but it left little time for others, and the whole thing didn’t finish till after 10pm, by which time we were pretty tired.