Tag Archives: open

20 July 2008

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David and son Oliver face the fury of the waves at West Runton last Sunday. I suppose “fury” may be putting it a bit high, but at least they’re in there together and having fun. Now it’s a week later, and Dot is at Ambient Wonder. I was intending to go, but got a stomach upset just as we were about to set off. Stomach seems to be OK now, which is a bit disappointing – not that my stomach is OK, but that I didn’t just ignore it and go. Oh, well. Preached at church this morning and also had to play guitar, because of a lack of musicians. Afterwards six of us went to the Gibraltar Gardens for lunch – a carvery. As the other four were Annette, Ali, Trevor and Liz, it was a lot of fun. The sun came out and we looked at the river afterwards, and wondered about going over to North Wales together. I don’t think it’s likely to happen, but it was nice thinking about it. Dot and I have booked to go to the Victoria Hotel at Holkham next Sunday, which is our ruby wedding anniversary, and we’re going to stay for two nights. Bit expensive, but it should be really nice.

Dot did her church school inspection on Thursday and wrote up her report on Friday, which is a bit of a record. I wrote a request for a second opinion on A’s condition and caught up on my in-tray. Phil came round later, and I looked at the accident report he had to put together for his insurance company: he looked at my second-opinion letter. My new Flip camcorder arrived, but I haven’t had a chance to get to grips with it yet. Looks very straightforward and promising. Later Joy invited Dot and me to a showing of Prince Caspian arranged by Surrey Chapel at the Hollywood Cinema. This was at 10.30am on Saturday, but we managed to get up in time to pick up Phil and Joy and get us all there in good time! The film was excellent. Joy had real trouble with the steps at the cinema, though, and we had to go and get the car from the car park so that she didn’t have to struggle to get back there.

Later yesterday, Mike, Annette R and Lisa popped in, and we had a talk about Paston and Lucy and how things were going. Really good to see them. I shall now probably be seeing Annette on Tuesday to help plan the book, and again on Thursday at Paston, to follow up the Wednesday workshop. I have been feeling quite a lot better, and next week I should be able to drive (six weeks after my operation). I am having a blood test tomorrow morning, which should give an indication as to whether the operation was a complete success. My consultant will tell all on the 31st.

Watched quite a lot of the Open this weekend and was delighted by the result, especially with an Englishman in second place. The Tour de France was pretty exciting today, too.

21 May 2007

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Extremely busy few days has just come to an end. Weather has turned rainy again, but over the weekend it was sunny and warm, which was excellent for two reasons. One, it was my son’s 35th birthday on Friday, and he and his family came up over the weekend. This meant the children could play outside, especially on the Sunday afternoon, when Oliver was having a lot of fun on his tractor on the pavement. Amy unfortunately was a little under the weather, but she hung on in there bravely.

The second reason was that it was the InPrint Open Studios private view on Sunday. This meant that I was spending all day Thursday and Friday at Bally, doing all kinds of moderately heavy work, including moving around the most crazily designed screens I’ve ever come across. Also of course hanging the artwork. Brought Bronwen up from Beccles on the Friday morning, and we hung her superb photographic piece, Unable to Find North. Tricky, because three heavy long and thin pieces had to match up. Dot brought me up some sandwiches and took Bronwen home after we’d hung her other pieces. I remained at Bally to help Mike hang his and Annette’s pictures, which was OK after we got a rhythm going! In the evening Dot and I went to hear Jacqui Dankworth at the Playhouse. Excellent seats for watching the musicians in action, which was fascinating. Not my sort of songs, really, but they were just an excuse to show off the musicians’ – and the singer’s – virtuosity. Most enjoyable. Dot accosted Jacqui afterwards because they’d met at a headteachers’ conference.

On the Saturday I had to write, design and laminate some notices, then rush them up to Bally before the family arrived just before noon. Then on Sunday, after I delivered some boxes of wine and juice to Bally at 8.45, we played music at Finnan’s dedication at church before I had to rush back to Bally for the private view. Meanwhile Dot was preparing lunch for the family, who had been to see one of Vicky’s bridesmaids at Easton. Then they all came down to hear the poetry reading just after 2pm.

That went pretty well – about 30-40 people. The picture above is of the four of us about to set off, with Caroline in pole position and Bronwen’s piece-de-resistance behind us. Over 100 people came to our studios altogether.

Today has been a little calmer, though I did pop up to Bally with some more notices, filled the car up with petrol and took a film in for processing. Speaking of films, Rupert filmed the poetry reading, which should be interesting. I’m going to play DH at chess this evening, which probably won’t be relaxing.