Tag Archives: philosophy

A touch of fireworks and a piece of flint

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IMG_3162On Thursday last week we had a short-notice and very welcome visit from David and the children. They stayed overnight, and we had some fireworks in the garden – though not too many, because we realised that several of them required you to be 15 metres away, and our garden is not that big. So David took some home with him. We lit a fire in the chimenia and some candles and had a generally good time. It wasn’t too cold. Dot cooked some jacket potatoes and chicken drumsticks, plus a chocolate pudding thing.

Earlier David had gone into the city, and over the two days we played table tennis, Dixit (Amy brought her new cards) and Coppit. Oliver and Amy both composed tunes on Garageband. Towards the end it became obvious that Oliver had a bad cold – or possibly a reaction to his flu jab.

Things went very quiet on Saturday, especially as Norwich City lost again – 2-1 to Manchester City. Rather unlucky. On Sunday we went to church and Carrie preached on saints. Dot and I both agreed her mother was one, in the sense that her character was attractive and an example to others. I mentioned my aunt Dorothy.

Later in the day Dot left for Kensington, where she stayed the night before doing her philosophy training for a very large group in a primary school yesterday. For a change they stayed in a nice “boutique” hotel. Meanwhile I took that car in to Wrights to have the back tyre looked at, and Wayne the mechanic found a piece of flint was causing a slow puncture. Hopefully that is now OK; I still have to get the MX5 tyres sorted. I also managed to get the car washed (did it myself at the garage) and filled with petrol, deposited the Humax box at the tip and paid the church cheques in. Not simultaneously. Later I peeled some apples.

Today Dot and I went to the Archant coffee morning; Brian and Tricia, Robin and Shelagh and (eventually) Maryta and Paul all there. Afterwards we walked down with the Hendersons to London Street to see their photographs in Boots’ window (ice and gorillas) and then on through the Close and home. This afternoon we entertained Dot’s accountant and will shortly be going to Judy’s for compline and cake. Slowly catching up on a pile of paperwork.

Short order

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Short back and sides: the finished job

Dot is on her way home from Gateshead after a successful time with Philosophy4Children at the BBC 3 Free Thinking Festival, and I am sitting her feeling pretty exposed after a thorough attack on our hedge by Colin and Matthew. At our request, of course, and I’m pretty pleased with the outcome, but the garden does look very bare – as well as quite a bit bigger.

I contributed to the desolation by cutting back the rose outside the back door rather drastically, taking the opportunity to get rid of the resulting rubbish on Colin’s lorry. This was particularly important because our brown bin wasn’t emptied last week, and there’s now some dispute about whether we’ve renewed our payment for the service. Embarrassingly, I don’t actually know.

The week started embarrassingly too, with a pretty inept loss to Martin Woolnough in the Dons chess knockout competition. I wasn’t feeling like playing, and it showed. Or maybe I’m just getting old. On the plus side, though, I’m feeling quite a lot better: I think I must have had a virus of some kind. And Norwich City have had a good week: Dot and I saw them beat Spurs 2-1 in the Capital Cup on Wednesday evening, and today in our absence they beat Stoke 1-0.

Dot has been working hard all week, preparing various Philosophy sessions that are coming up, and on Tuesday she spent most of the day at Barbara’s; so I put the evening meal together for the Tuesday Group. Nothing special, obviously.  On Wednesday, in preparation for the evening football, we had our hair cut: this is not interesting, just a matter of record.

On Thursday, while Dot went out to Hethersett I visited an ailing Lucy at Paston, returning some of the stuff I’d brought home from Mannington Hall (but not all of it, obviously: that would have been too sensible) and sharing a cup of tea. Later Anne visited Aspland Road, providing some light relief for Dot (and me).

I took Dot down to the Scole Inn on Friday afternoon, where she transferred to Barbara’s car for the journey to Gateshead. Last day of half term; so lots of traffic in the city. I felt it advisable therefore to return home in pretty short order. Not much else happened. I shall now cook a pizza, because I can’t be bothered to go out and buy fish and chips. This is what it comes to.

Eye test proves positive

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Lasers coming in at the end of racing off Roses, Catalonia

Catalonia seems a million miles away, and not just because of the cooler weather, which really hasn’t been too bad. It’s getting back into the normal swim and catching up with so many things, such as church finance, post and e-mails. In the midst of it all, I’ve upgraded my computer to Mountain Lion and sorted out a couple of resulting problems: the disappearance of my Notes and the Folders in Mail. Needless to say passwords turned out to be a difficulty, and I ended up redoing them, which is sometimes easier than trying to work out which one they mean. Of course you do eventually run out of passwords.

It’s been a very busy week for Dot on the schools front– even busier than she thought it would be, because she’d forgotten to enter a couple of appointments in her calendar. At around noon yesterday I noticed that my diary said she should be at Hickling at 1pm. At the time she was at Neatishead and about to head for a lunch date with Carrie; so I texted her to check – which didn’t help as she had no signal (of course). Happily though she rang me on the school phone to ask me to phone Carrie to say she’d be late; so I was able to redirect her. Today she is at Tacolneston, another date originally missing from her list.

She’s had a day working on Philosophy with Barbara, and has also been working on her tax data. Meanwhile I’ve been slowly ploughing on with mundane matters, but I have written an article and a poem for my website, and edited the Chronicle material for Mannington Hall. I’ve also bought some presents for Amy and had an eye test, which proved positive: I do have them. I also have slight signs of incipient cataracts, but apparently this is normal at my age, and usually they don’t turn out to be a problem. I’ve also given a fairly large cheque to the Norwich Christian Resource Centre after sponsoring the guy there for a cycle ride and mistyping what I was planning to give him. It seemed the right thing to do.

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.

Brown bin full of fallen leaves

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Oliver in his den in our garden

Not exactly a seamless move into autumn. We had our hair cut in preparation, and then bought a fridge, while wondering where the extra hour went. The first brown bin full of fallen leaves was left out on Monday, and now the road is covered with golden confetti. I have just taken Joy to the dentist’s – and fetched her again. Bit of an ordeal for her (the dental work, not my driving).

Dot went to London on Sunday and stayed with her colleague Barbara at David Coomes’ place in Walthamstow. Handily, this was five minutes from the school in Waltham Forest where they were doing a day’s P4C on the Monday. Kristine was absent in Kabul (some people will do anything…) but DC made them welcome. My radius has been much narrower over the past few days, the highlight being a visit to Paston to see Lucy and obtain some exhibition material that could be photographed for publicity for the Dragon Hall event. I should mention that I had to tackle a vampire on Hallowe’en, but only a small one: Phoebe, from two doors down.

Also on Monday I had to open the church hall for repairs and found myself assisting guy who was replacing a broken window, checking the starter on a light bulb and repairing some guttering. The heaters have also been serviced in my absence, and I was surprised to hear that two are broken. We knew about one of them, but the other was working very well on Sunday, so I can’t help being suspicious. Now there’s a big debate about whether we should install a better heating system.

In other news, Ian Fosten dropped in the 42 poems submitted for the Waveney and Blyth competition, from which I have to select a winner and four or five commended. Boot-on-other-foot situation. Dot has gone off for lunch in the city with Becca from NYFC, followed by a meeting with Anne, and I have a long list of things to do, largely because I’ve spent much of my time this week (a) preparing a sermon for Sunday and (b) preparing a one-day session on our relationship with Creation for a St Luke’s group. Also taking antibiotics for suspected infection in the lower abdomen area, but I think that’s on its way out. Either that or I am.

Philosophical encounter

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Temperatures are up a bit, but it’s turning windy and, after today, wet, we are told. Yesterday I went for a 3.5-mile walk round the outskirts of the city centre, as it were. Felt very cold and rather unwell at first, but things improved. Dot had just left for South London for her philosophical encounter with Dulwich College Prep School. She picked up Barbara on the way and then drove to the Hendersons’, where they stayed the night, before arising at some unearthly hour to drive to the prep school. Although this is only seven or eight miles, it took them an hour,  mainly along the South Circular. Rumour has it that the session went well, but they are not back yet. Afterwards they had something to eat and then spoke to the head of the junior section of Eltham College, with a view to philosophical activity there in the future.

Ironically, in view of her picture two posts back, Maryta is now in quite bad pain after a fall from a horse – so bad in fact that she is considering cancelling her horse-riding holiday. To anyone who knows Maryta, that means it must be very bad indeed, but not of course bad enough to stop her going into work. That requires death, or at least unconsciousness.

Things have been quiet here, especially after I tidied the house up. Earlier this afternoon I went to the supermarket in the MX5 and deposited some recyclable stuff that the council persistently declines to collect. This morning I went to the Post Office and submitted applications for our new passports. We both look miserable, of course. This is partly because you mustn’t smile in a passport photo, but also because we’re never quite sure the machine is working properly.

Room at the village inn

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Rather pleased with the quality of this iPhone picture taken near Carrow Bridge a couple of days ago.

Snow has returned, but not for us. Quite severe in the Midlands, but we have a grey, wet and thoroughly uninviting day, and Dot is about to go into the city to lunch with Anne, who is celebrating her retirement. In view of the rain, I shall probably drive her up there.

Things have been quiet after the excitement of Christmas and New Year. For me, that is. Dot has been busy: first, preparing for and then delivering her presentation on the distinctiveness of a church school to staff from Easton, Hockering and Great Witchingham. The event was held at Ringland – not on the hills but at the village inn – and went very well. Since then she has been preparing for her Philosophy4Children event at Dulwich College Prep School, who have just rung up to check what she needs in the way of IT support and accommodation. Refreshingly professional of them, and reassuring for Dot.

As for me, I have managed a walk or two – the longer of them yesterday, when I paid in church collection money before calling at Phyllis Seaman’s to check that she was OK: she’s normally a regular at church but hasn’t been seen since the Sunday before Christmas, when she had a bad cold. She’s in her 80s and has no phone, so it’s hard to contact her. She was out when I called, but a neighbour said he’d seen her shopping recently, so she must be well enough to get around.

Yesterday, on twelfth night, we took down the Christmas decorations and deposited them in the loft. The house looked very bare without them, but at the same time tidier.

Last night England won the final test match against Australia, which meant they won the series 3-1. A historic achievement, especially as their victories were all by an innings. Makes you wonder how they managed to lose in Perth. Lots of Australian jokes going round, many of them weak, along the lines of What do you call an Australian with 100 against his name? A bowler. I think it was Graham Swann who said that over-the-top celebrations were out of order. Quite right: things can change so quickly in cricket, and there is a huge amount of luck involved. This does not stop me being delighted, however.

Had my six-monthly blood test the other day. Always a time for holding my breath, but I feel OK.

Detached

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Granddaughter Amy waiting for the return of her father from the shops, and wearing some of her favourite shoes.

Strange times: like living in a parallel universe, all white and cold and completely detached, and awaiting what Dr Who might call “something big and dark out there”, except it’s big and white, and returning tomorrow. Still, the road is navigable at the moment, so we’ve just been out to purchase Coalite and logs. Tuesday Group should be happening tonight. Earlier had a long lie-in after Dot’s busy day yesterday, when she presented Philosophy for Children to about 50 teachers at North Walsham and was rewarded with a delicious lunch. Some anxiety from Dot about getting there, so I drove to the bottom of the road for her, but the main roads were quite clear. Our bright new bin proved deficient (the lid wouldn’t close) so we returned it to Bessemer Road in exchange for a good version (we hope) on her return, then called in to do some serious supermarket shopping on the way back. I ventured out to play chess in the evening, but instead of the knockout game I was expecting, I was drafted in to play as a guest in the A team. Unfortunately this coincided with a stomach upset which rather disturbed my wa, though I probably can’t blame losing again solely on that. I did have quite an interesting position at one point.

On Sunday morning there was a moving service in memory of Rosemary, who was always such a welcoming figure at the church – and probably the person most responsible for keeping it going in many practical ways. Her family (including a sister from America) were there, and I think they were moved by what members of the congregation said. She is going to be very sorely missed. Afterwards there was a meeting aimed at sharing out some of her jobs, at least on a temporary basis. Most of the immediate problems centre on hall hiring, which Rosemary was in charge of, but I’m sure many other unexpected things will surface.

Have written a little on training church magazine editors in preparation for the visit of Anne Coomes next week (weather permitting); will do more this week. Also have to prepare a talk and practical ideas for a poetry session at Costessey Junior School, also next week. A little worried by the erratic behaviour of the Broadband connection, which is absolutely fine during the day, but in the evening it goes slower and slower very quickly, until it’s unusable. Could it be the same problem I had before, maybe linked to installing Snow Leopard? I may have to call on technical support…

Perfect day

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Dot walking across a field at Shotesham.
Dot walking across a field at Shotesham.

I’ve just realised it’s October 29 and not October 30, which means I have an extra day. Don’t know how that happened. Today has been one of those glorious autumn days that you want to last for ever – warm, but not too warm, absolutely still, blue sky, lovely autumn colours in the trees, everyone smiling. Dot had to get up early and go to the doctor’s, so when she returned we decided to go for a morning walk. I decided on Shotesham, because it had been recommended by Joy, a poet who I correspond with. We parked by the ruined church (St Martin’s) and had a quick look, staying safely clear of possible falling masonry (warning signs abound), then walked over to Shotesham St Mary Church and had a look inside. Amazing how all churches smell the same. This church is away from the main village but next to Shotesham Hall, which has a moat but is private. We walked along some footpaths along high ground – for Norfolk– saw a heron in flight and some geese around a pond, then emerged on to the Stoke Road. Walked back by quiet roads – a total of about 2-3 miles. Many pheasants around (we took a detour through part of a wood). After picking up the car we drove down to Shotesham Ford and took a few more pictures. Tried to catch a falling leaf, but failed.

Back at the house I finished a story I’ve been writing for Oliver for Christmas. Now have to get it printed in an acceptable form, though I guess he won’t need so many pictures now that he can read really well. Actually have two stories for him – discovered an earlier one not long ago, called Little and the Piece of Cake. Dot is feeling much better during the day, but coughs a lot at night. Needless to say, the doctor didn’t give her anything for it. She and Barbara are going to London on Monday to present their ideas to what sounds like quite a high-powered educational group. They are being fed, and their expenses are being paid. Only problem is that it’s at the end of a day when Dot and Sue will have been deliveriig Philosophy for Children to a school in south Norfolk. She will be feeling a mite tired at the end of it all, so I hope she recovers quickly from her current ailment.

14 January 2009

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We’ve just been for a three-mile walk at Venta Icenorum, the Roman town about three miles outside Norwich, and this is Dot approaching the church in a mist that lifted as we arrived and came down again as we left. Other pictures on Flickr. In between, quite briefly, bright sunshine. We did the longer walk around the site, found a couple of swans on the river, which was flowing briskly, and some magpies on the hill on the other side. The combination of mist and sunshine was spectacular at times, with naked trees coming out of the mist like Romans emerging from the past. After finishing the round we walked a further mile and a quarter on permissive paths that have only recently been opened along the sides of fields. We walked up to a low ridge (the only sort you get in Norfolk) and sighted a tiny shrew by a marker post. Then walked past an Anglo-Saxon burial site marked by pines reaching into the sky, through the mist, towards the sun. All very pleasand and unexpected: in Norwich it has been bright sunshine all the way.

Earlier today looked at some cottages in Scotland for a possible holiday with David and Vicky and the children. We also received the sad news that Bernard O’Brien had died on Christmas Eve. It is his funeral tomorrow, and we hope to go. Bernard was our neighbour for 12 years in Yelverton – a gentle, eccentric giant.

Dot has been busy with her philosophy for children. She spent most of Monday at Terrington St Clement with Sue and Roger Eagle, and they have another three dates there in the next couple of months. Then she was down at Barbara’s all yesterday afternoon after we had had our hair cut. Naturally I have been putting the time to good use, though I can’t quite remember what I did. Our Tuesday Group was at the Archers’ last night, which meant we didn’t have to worry about cooking.