Tag Archives: piano

Having the Bishop of Norwich for lunch

Uncategorized, , , , , , ,
Dot, David and Chrissy on the boundary at Beechwood while Oliver played cricket
Dot, David and Chrissy on the boundary at Beechwood while Oliver played cricket

With rain promised for the rest of the week, Dot and I felt we had to take advantage of today’s sunshine and warmth; so after lunch we headed for North-East Norfolk. Once clear of the tourist hub of Wroxham we headed for the hamlet of Briggate, where we parked adjacent to Weavers’ Way. From there we walked across fields to Worstead and back – a round trip of about four miles. Quite pleasant.

We are now home and preparing to have two friends from church round for a meal as part of our “have two friends from church for a meal” project. Well, not exactly, but the church as a whole is trying to get to know each other better, though I suspect our congregation already knows each other better than most church congregations.

Yesterday we had the Bishop of Norwich for lunch. I suppose that could have been better phrased, but I sort of like it. It was basically a joint service at St Luke’s, at which Dot and I assisted with the music (Phil was a late withdrawal). Six hymns (three completely new to us) with Steve on lead guitar and Angela on keyboards. Also Dot and I (with help from Steve) did a couple of my songs during communion.

The Bishop did an excellent sermon and was even better on answering questions afterwards. We had a bring-and-share lunch that was more than adequate, and then those who were left (the Bishop having departed with Nicholas) had a shot at an exercise designed to reveal who was interested in doing what after Nicholas left for America. I suspect that “reveal”is not quite the word.

Working backwards, on Saturday we celebrated Anne’s birthday belatedly with an excellent meal at the King’s Head in Brooke. I had fishcake with egg, duck breast and a lovely dessert consisting of Malibu brûlée and mango sorbet. Very moreish.

Julia and Allan came for an evening meal with us on Friday. Dot did her latest lamb dish, which is delicious, and we had a made-up starter involving those little salmon thingies, grapes and toast, with strawberries dipped in chocolate to finish. Then we imposed our holiday pictures on them, but they didn’t seem to mind too much.  Earlier in the day I had been rushing up to the bank in Magdalen Street to find out why a church cheque had bounced (they had neglected to amalgamate our two accounts as promised) before heading to the market to buy the strawberries.

Which brings us logically to last Thursday. In the morning I went by bus to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital for a chest x-ray, which must have taken all of 15 minutes maximum (including waiting time), and in the evening we attended the Assembly House for a piano concert by Evelyne Berezovsky as part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. She was hot, and so was the Music Room. I had to rip off my jumper during a break between pieces, and other customers were also wilting.

Still, it is always worth visiting the Assembly House, because the toilets are first-class. When I say Evelyne Berezovsky was hot, I mean of course that she was a stunningly good pianist. I hope that’s clear.

The kitten and the rabbit

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,
Geoff sitting in his garden at Rockland
Geoff sitting in his garden at Rockland

I am now backed up. I have an external hard drive . If only that were true: in fact it is the computer that is backed up, now being linked to Time Machine, as it was designed to be. I myself am struggling along with the same old operating system that is showing signs of wear and tear. And I can’t get back to what I used to do.

I can’t even see very well, because I have new varifocal glasses that are designed to be clear in three different ways, but are in fact unclear in at least three, probably more. This morning I had to put my old reading glasses on to read the paper.

Oh, well. I’ve managed to walk about four miles today – mainly to the Norfolk Record Office to hear a talk by Elizabeth McDonald on “Books the Pastons Read”. Similar to the one she did at Dragon Hall, but not the same. Quite interesting, as Stephen Fry might say.

Last night we had a mammoth PCC meeting to discuss the increase in the parish share and how we were going to meet it. One of those dreadful meetings where you wish you were somewhere else. If church is about raising money, I’m not interested. I have a meeting scheduled with the new treasurer for the parish, one Susannah McGuire. I was relieved to find that she probably knows less about church accounting than I do. Sadly, that is not much.  I warmed to her.

Earlier, before I got my non-focal glasses, I had a visit from Adrian Bell, the potential publisher of our tanka book. He seemed reasonably impressed. It’s just about done; I’m now waiting to hear from him what other information he needs to go in it, such as price, and whether it should have a spine – which is about as ironic as you can get.

After the piano tuner left (see last post) I went out to Rockland to see Geoff. The weather was pretty cold, but dry, and he was keen to walk in the garden. So we did it. A little unsteady, but in the circumstances remarkable. He had his carer, Lisa, with him, and she was lovely – made tea and provided (Sophie’s) fruit cake.

Next day (Friday) I went out to see Lucy, who continues to recover slowly from her cracked ribs. She has a personal assistant (carer) called Priscilla, who is also lovely. The two of us tried to put up a washing line in the garden: she was much better at it than me. She is also gradually organising the house, which will be interesting. Meanwhile the kitten and the rabbit have a peculiar relationship: the kitten puts its paw through the bars of the rabbit cage and touches the rabbit, which ignores it. Doesn’t try to get out of the way – just ignores it.

Which is what I wish I’d done with the idea to employ a UEA intern for the Paston Heritage Society. This has now reached a ridiculous stage, with the lad doing very little work but clocking up huge numbers of hours. We received a bill from the UEA which Lucy is refusing to pay. Anna is very worried. I am now retiring from the conflict and letting them get on with it, which is a pity, as they’re both friends. At the moment.

On Saturday it was still cold , but Dot and I had tickets for Norwich v West Ham. In fact we had three tickets, so we invited Phil, who called round by chance the previous afternoon. City played very badly in the first half, so at half time I predicted we would win 3-1. Amazingly, we did. I am now regarded as a prophet. I am without honour in my own country, of course.

Fine tuning and football

Uncategorized, , , , ,
Dot at the Bella Vista, Cromer
Dot at the Bella Vista, Cromer

Norwich City eventually lost 7-0, but we don’t need to dwell on that. After all, Manchester City put five past a Champions League team a few days later.  Just hope we do a bit better against West Ham on Saturday – Dot and I have tickets.

The weather has been a bit mixed, and we’ve reached that stage in the autumn when the ground never seems to get dry. The last two days have been wet and lethargic, but today looks brighter. I hope to go and see Geoff this afternoon, but at the moment I’m waiting for the piano tuner and his football commentary. Dot is on her way to a school at Bradwell after Mary next door came round for a few signatures. She is applying for a new job. Ex-head teachers rank way above ex-journalists and poets on the respectability scale.

Rather disappointingly, I failed to register in the winners’ list at the Seagull poetry competition, but Rob Knee was joint first (and had another commended). He and Penny were at the NRO yesterday for a talk by Anthony Smith on how Fastolf got on in 1450 (I paraphrase).  A dense but interesting 50 minutes, especially after they got the microphone working. I wrote a piece for my website based on it.

Penny’s mother has just died, and I was able to commiserate. This meant, however, that I missed chatting with Judy, who was also there.

Because of the damp weather I drove to the NRO, thus failing at the second fence in my bid to walk to all of the talks. The tanka book is now finished, and I have only to establish some sort of meaningful dialogue with the publisher. However, Joy is in a bad state again. We need to get it published for her.

Still in the middle of “discussions” with UEA over the PHS intern who claims to have done over 80 hours’ work but has produced very little. Mistakes on all sides, I think. He should have been much more closely monitored.

Dropped in at the Forum on Monday to look at a display of Holocaust poetry that featured a translation by Kristine – oddly, from English into German. Adjacent to the small exhibition was a circular table, around which a number of earnest middle-aged academic-looking people were holding a discussion group. Each had a pot of tea. I wrote a poem about it called The Holocaust Discussion Group.

In the evening we had a meal at Prezzo with Angela and Rodney, followed by coffee at home. The meal was courtesy of Auntie Ethel, whose house is now cleared out and all-but forgotten. She herself seems physically well and enjoying the home.

I have now booked the hotel for Florida and the seating for all the flights. But I haven’t managed to persuade Coventry City Council to tell me how much they’re paying towards Andrew’s accommodation. It will be nice when that’s sorted.

On Tuesday we had nine for our regular Group, and we celebrated November 5th with sparklers in the garden afterwards. The piano tuner seems to be getting on well.

Goats, piano and a cold cathedral

Uncategorized, , , , , ,
wisteria
Wisteria flowering in our back garden for the first time in a quarter of a century

The warm weather persists. Today we are in the mid-20s: one of those warm, calm summer days we don’t see enough of. We’re trying to resist the temptation to hurtle out in the car, on the grounds that everyone else will be doing the same. Still, we might venture a walk later on. We had expected Andrew to be with us this weekend, but he was not well enough to come. In fact when Phil and I went to Coventry yesterday to move some more of his stuff from Gareth’s to The Langleys, we found him to be in a sad state, and although I was intending at first to bring him back with us anyway, the longer we were with him, the worse he seemed, and in the end we decided it wasn’t practical, either from his point of view or from ours. It was sad to see him so fearful. We did manage to get quite a bit of his stuff moved, including three or four storage cubes which have given him more space in his room to accommodate it. I tried to get him to select what he wanted to bring, but he wasn’t able to do it, and eventually I had to make the decisions, while Phil, with a lot of help from Gareth – Andrew’s former carer, who is talking of moving to Portugal to rear goats – shifted the heavy stuff. Phil and I left for home about 4pm, but because of heavy traffic and a couple of diversions didn’t get to Norwich until 7.30pm. Admittedly, we had a meal on the way …

Dot and I completed our nap hand of Norfolk and Norwich Festival Concerts on Wednesday and Thursday. Dot had been at Overstrand on Wednesday morning, but got back in time to take the bus up to Castle Meadow and walk the rest of the way to the Assembly House for a piano recital by Reinis Zarins, who journeyed from Prokoviev to Liszt by way of Schoenberg, which made for some surprisingly hilly scenery. Amazing technique. I was a little surprised that the hall wasn’t full, but the Roman Catholic Cathedral was packed for our final concert of the festival, billed as Tallis in Wonderland (see what they did there?). This was a group of six singers – British, despite their name,  I Fagiolini – who used a rather innovative approach to 15th and 16th century music. Unaccompanied voices, but a lot of strange presentation, particularly running round the church and singing from different individual positions, with additional words and singing from loudspeakers. I found the concert annoying at first, but eventually liked some of the ideas and movement; however, the overriding feeling was that it was very, very cold and I wanted them to get to the end as quickly as possible. This was made worse by the fact that it had been a warm day, and so no-one was wearing heavy clothing. The temperature inside the cathedral must have been about 15 degrees colder than outside. Felt sorry for the performers, who had to do it all again later in the evening. Felt even sorrier for the people who were going to come to the second, and presumably even colder, performance. Suggested on Twitter that it should be renamed Tallis on Ice.

We walked briskly home afterwards and snuggled up in front of the television for an hour or so. Earlier in the day Colin had come to re-lay a bit of our drive, which was cracking up. He discovered that our downpipe didn’t go anywhere except under the drive, so he changed plans (after discussion) and eventually – after discovering a gas pipe – went for a kind of stone-filled soakaway covered by pebbles. We are thinking of putting in a semi-circular water butt to solve the where-will-the-water-go problem. Meanwhile we now have a large soil-filled, wood box for vegetables in the back garden – but the really big news is that our wisteria has flowered for the first time in 26 years! It has got together with some honeysuckle and looks really good.

Something absolutely delicious

Uncategorized, , , ,
Canoeist somersaulting
Canoeist tests submarine mode

Typically early visit from the piano tuner on Thursday roused me from my toast, tea and Sudoku. Wandered into sufficient consciousness to discuss Norwich City and other essentials while Dot prepared for DSSO visit to Yarmouth school. Later in the day she went to a governors’ meeting at Gillingham and dropped me on the Kirby Bedon road. I did a bit of exploring round the hinterland of Trowse and eventually found my way down to Whitlingham Broad and then home along the road, with a brief meadow excursion. I would guess about four miles in all, and very pleasant too. Got in some walking every day last week (until the weekend), and after a discussion with long-distance walker Michael, from down the road, went up to John Lewis and bought myself a pedometer that you can wear round your neck. New technology: you had to wear the old ones clipped to your belt, and I broke or lost several of them. I gave this one a brief test immediately, and it seemed pretty accurate. Unfortunately available only in kilometres, but the conversion maths will give my brain some exercise.

During the Thursday walk I took several photographs, and was lucky when I did the final bit along Riverside and found a canoeist doing practice stunts in the Wensum. Got some nice shots.

Drove to the Swan Hotel at Southwold on Saturday for Philip Robinson’s 70th birthday celebration meal. Got stuck in Norwich City championship celebration post-match traffic on the way out of Norwich, but still reached the hotel first, by about half an hour. Too chilly to go for a walk, so had a drink in the bar. Eventually, everyone turned up: Philip and Anne; Anne’s friend Francine; Sophie and husband Rich; Charlotte and fiance Chris; and Louise and boyfriend James. Had quite a long talk with all of them during the evening, which lasted till nearly midnight. Particularly good chat with Charlotte and Chris, who sat opposite us in the restaurant. The food was pretty well perfect. I had pigeon breast followed by beef – both done beautifully, and then poached pears with something absolutely delicious, the exact nature of which I’ve forgotten. It may have been supernatural. Gave Louise and James a lift back: they live on Thorpe Road, opposite the Town House.

Before all that I started work on the book I’m editing and got a couple of chapters done. I’ve fired them off to the author to see if she’s happy, but haven’t heard back yet. Perhaps she isn’t.  Despite our rather thick heads (we didn’t get to bed till about 1.30am) Dot and I enjoyed St Augustine’s yesterday, where I read the Banns for Ed and Jenny – for the second time of asking. Caught up on some TV in the afternoon and decided at the last moment not to go to the Ambient Wonder cafe evening, partly because our neighbours from the end of the road came round to tell us they were moving three doors down, and why. Nothing to do with us. I’m happy to say, but the same problem with the same people that everyone else seems to be having. Oddly, it’s bringing the rest of us together.

Today Dot dropped me off at the Premier Inn near the bypass on her way to Yarmouth. I walked back from there to test new pedometer again. Pretty accurate, but have adjusted step length downward slightly (85 > 80 cm) which works out about right, I think. More walks to follow! Quite warm today, but with some spots of rain.