Tag Archives: furniture

Magical spot discovered by accident

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Oliver on the beach at Woolacombe

As soon as the Murrays returned to Canada, the weather improved. Yesterday could almost be described as hot, especially if you had been walking into the city, paying in some church cheques and then, out of the blue, buying a guitar for Oliver’s birthday. Last Friday, by contrast, was not hot, but we did manage to get out into the garden for a quick drink before retreating inside for a meal with Roger, Barbara, Anne and Philip. Excellent meal by Dot – citrus salmon – despite her not feeling great, but I was so tired that I actually went to sleep toward the end of the evening. I don’t suppose anyone noticed.

On Saturday it was quite pleasant, and we went to Holt, where Dot and Barbara shopped while Roger and I went our separate ways. I accidentally found this beautiful area called Spout Hills and walked through it and on along a path into a hilly field. Quite magical in places. Started writing a poem. Also bought a new book by Alan Garner called Boneland, which is supposed to be a sequel to the Brisingamen trilogy. Went on to Blakeney and had afternoon tea in the Blakeney Hotel’s upstairs lounge, then walked a little, but the wind was quite chilly by then. Drove home via Salthouse (brief walk on the shingle), then West Runton and by country lanes to Aylsham.

In the evening we had a really nice meal at Loch Fyne. Our waiter, Pedro, was brilliant, and I entered into the spirit of things by having the seasonal fish, which was turbot – and very good too with samphire and chips. This was a sort of celebration of the Murrays’ 45th wedding anniversary, which was actually on the Sunday, when they were flying home – which meant that Barbara would be practically unconscious for most of the time. Afterwards, there was the packing, while Dot and I watched Match of the Day.

They left early on Sunday, in case of hold-ups on the road, but actually made it to Heathrow in record time and rang us to tell us so: unfortunately the phone rang in the middle of one of our quiet periods in church, and Dot had to rush out with her bag, because the phone was somewhere in there… We spent the rest of the day (with breaks) clearing the living room of all we could in preparation for the work that is now going on. Trickiest bit was keeping the curtains neat and depositing them on the table tennis table, but it was followed closely by shifting the hi-fi and the television, plus DVD-player, Humax and Apple TV – then reconnecting all the wires. Everything worked except the television, because the aerial wasn’t receiving a signal. We could still use Apple TV and watch recorded programmes, but not live TV. I Have called in our expert aerial man Ryan, and he will be arriving later today.

Yesterday the furniture men arrived promptly at 9am, and all seemed to be well until they found they couldn’t safely dismantle the bookcase because the top bit was nailed on. So they shifted it off the wall and made it movable so that it could be worked round. Everything else (bar the piano) was removed, either by us or by them. The house is now a mite cluttered. Today we have the asbestos men, who arrived at about 9.45am and are almost finished. They had to drive here from Lincoln, which seems a bit excessive.

To round off yesterday we had a DCC meeting, during which I presented the financial report. Happily there were no questions I couldn’t answer. Today Dot is doing Philosophy at Kersey in Suffolk, which I happened to stumble on during an earlier inspection trip and which is a lovely little village with a ford in the middle of it and a steep hill up to the church. Nothing to do with Philosophy, but a nice setting for it.

Moving furniture and poems

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This morning at 22 Aspland Road

Seem to have been working quite hard, which is not like me. On Friday, while Dot was out and about, I listened to the King Street interviews and wrote five poems, four of which I’ve sent off a few minutes ago to the person in charge of the project. Most of my time, however, has been spent moving furniture in preparation for the grand floor-change enterprise, which will take up most of this coming week.

Some of the furniture has gone in the garage, some upstairs. The big filing cabinet is in the downstairs loo (all the files were removed and then replaced), and the smaller one in the utility room with the fridge. Smaller things are upstairs or (again) in the garage. We tried to move the big table into the garage, but it was beyond us. We may be able to manage it tomorrow, when Gary comes to take up the carpet and screw down the chipboard. He is a carpenter, so he should be able to move tables.

This morning, after about three or four inches of overnight snow, we decided to walk to church. Quite pleasant too, except that I arrived home absolutely exhausted. I don’t know why, because we’d had a meal at church. Admittedly, walking in snow is tiring, but we’d had no problem in the Peak District. Maybe moving furniture took more out of me than I thought. We bade farewell to Matthew at church today. He is off to London this week. However, more things are now happening at church, and I’m optimistic about it.

Last Friday we had an evening meal with the Kibbles. Rod is a nice guy who goes into things in great depth. I try to keep up. Next day (yesterday) Dot got a ticket from Jonathan to watch Norwich beat Bolton 2-0. Lucy is out of hospital, but far from well.

HIgh price of levelled lights

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Dot with the chest relocated to the garage. Quite a lot of captions rejected there.

Approaching the end of November and very wintry – apparently the earliest snow for 17 years. Not too much of it here – it barely settles and then disappears – but lots in the north (eg Scarborough) and our usual haunts in Scotland are badly hit. Still a bit uncertain how our journey to London will go tomorrow; according to the forecast, we should be all right if we can get out of Norfolk.

Enjoyed our lunch on Tuesday with Lucy and her friends, which showed signs of going on into the evening, but we had to go to the supermarket and then Tuesday Group at the Archers; so we left around 4pm. No time to call in at the garage, but we did that the next day after a visit to the tip to deposit some failed electrical items. Discovered a new automatic light leveller would cost £340: the service guy at the garage was as shocked as we were, and he’s booked the car in next week to see if some other method can be found of fixing it. Meanwhile, of course, no problem with it. We’ll see what happens on the way back from London on Sunday, after our much-postponed visit to the Coomes’.

We went to see 100-year-old Phyllis on same day and shared Communion with her, her daughter Janet, Nicholas and Elvira, in her little flat at Doughty’s Hospital while it poured with rain outside. Later, with exquisite timing, had our hair cut. Yesterday I went into the city and tried to get some sense out of the O2 shop regarding switching my old mobile phone data to my new one, including the number. Had three attempts and wasn’t happy with what they said, so I’ve decided to use the number that came with the iPhone. Now have to let everyone know, but as the people who actually ring me on my mobile can be counted on the toes of one foot, this shouldn’t be too arduous. For anyone who’s interested, the new number is 07543 804041.

Today our new unit for the hi-fi was delivered, and Dot has spent much of the day, with some help from me, rearranging and tidying up the house. The living room certainly looks good. Discovered loads of David’s old school and college stuff (including a monitor) in the old chest which is now relocated in the garage.

The long good birthday

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An iPhone picture of birthday girl Dot at her desk

I was expecting some editing work to do this morning, but it hasn’t arrived, so instead I’m bringing my blog up to date. Winter is fast approaching, with snow forecast for the end of the week. We are about to venture into a no doubt chilly North Norfolk for lunch with Lucy and a couple of her friends who want to know about Ambient Wonder. We are not experts on AW, but will do our best!

The past few days have centred on Dot’s birthday, which “began” last Friday (see previous post). In the evening we went to the Norfolk Mead at Coltishall with Anne and Philip. Excellent meal and ambience, though a trifle on the pricey side. Still, well worth it. My car lights started playing up again on the way there, and I guess I’m going to have to call in at the garage later today. The auto-levelling system isn’t working properly. Sometimes it’s OK; sometimes it isn’t. Just what you want: an intermittent fault that won’t be happening when we reach the engineers.

In view of the slight risk of dodgy lights, we took Dot’s MX5 to Caddington for the weekend and had good journeys each way. Lovely birthday meals both days: Amy had made some buns, and Oliver had bought Dot some chocolate. David gave her a Kindle, which she is already much absorbed in. On Saturday afternoon the Coomes family came over; it was good to see them again. The children all get on very well. We returned home when David left to take the children to Aylesbury – just after 3pm on the Sunday.

Monday was Dot’s actual birthday. In addition to the bracelet, I bought her the book of the radio series, A History of the World in 100 Objects , a sizeable tome which she seemed very pleased with. It weighs several hundred Kindles. To celebrate her birthday further, we bought some more furniture from Gary’s Pine – this time an oak unit to hold our record player and a small table to hold a plant. From St Giles Street we hurtled to the Ruschcutters for a lovely lunch, made even better by the free birthday bottle of wine. From there things quietened down a bit, though the aerial man arrived just after 2pm to fix the connection to out bedroom TV. Will probably have him back in the new year to sort out a switch to bedroom digital!

On a technical note, Dot was overwhelmed by the number of birthday wishes she received via Facebook. Impressive.