Tag Archives: radiators

Gradually fading light

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On Thursday we voted for a police commissioner, and he got in. Not many people can say that. In more exciting news, two of the radiators in the house are cold, and the Evetts are due tomorrow. In addition, the heating failed to turn off last night when it was supposed to, so when the gas engineer eventually turns up (Wednesday is the latest offer) we will have a few questions to ask him. Hope he can answer them.

Meanwhile on Friday we went with the Robinsons to the world-famous Poringland cinema experience and saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which much to my surprise was both brilliant and inspiring, despite being set in India, which is probably the country I least want to visit.

On Saturday, while Dot got rather over-excited watching Norwich City beat Manchester United 1-0, I attended a birthday celebration for Bridget, who was 52. This took place on the Southern Comfort, which started at Horning, set off down the Bure and visited Ranworth Broad in gradually fading light. Atmospheric: really enjoyed it, especially as the forecast had been for constant rain.

Amy Myers in party mood

Spent quite a lot of time talking to Amy Myers (5), who has developed a lot and is fun. She had  a small admirer called Emily (2).

I drove Howard to Horning (and back). Anna, like Dot, had intended to come but had mistimed her return from Derbyshire. The cake was good, and I also had a chat with Bridget’s mother, Joy, who I’ve known for a while. She writes short stories. By today Anna had a stomach upset, so didn’t make church. Dot did make church and seems to be pretty healthy, which is just as well in the circumstances.

Phil came round and lent me a booklet by Paul on the life of Mollie Wurr, who I knew way back in Surrey Chapel days.

Walking with Australians

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Diane Jackman Lee reads her poem out at the end of the poetry-art workshop at Dragon Hall. Completed work on board.

My talk at St Luke’s on our relationship with Creation went well after a slow start: the group of 8-10 were eventually persuaded to be responsive, and actually got very enthusiastic about my paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer from the Aramaic, which made a good ending. Came away feeling quite pleased after not knowing quite what to expect.

Other things that turned out well: Roger came round to deliver a birthday present for Dot, and I had a brief chat with him about the dodgy radiators. As a result tried a couple of things that didn’t work but then had a determined go at bleeding them (I had tried before without success). After quite a bit of spillage one worked; the other didn’t. Not to be thwarted, I then had a go at removing and refixing the valve cover that adjusts the heat and managed to get it back on properly. Result: two working radiators, and I’ve now cancelled the engineer’s visit.

And I was relieved to find only two people on the Paston walk this morning – a couple of western Australians who knew nothing at all about the Pastons and not much about Norwich. So it was easy for me, and even St Peter Hungate opened for our visit as promised. Not sure about the Paston Week as a whole: attendance has been sparse and the organisation a little inaccurate at times. I expected far more to be on Rob’s walk, which started two hours after mine today, but he only had one person!

Yesterday before helping the re-enactors to set up at Dragon Hall I managed about 90 minutes in the city, paying in cheques, booking theatre tickets and dropping in a poetry book for Keiron in the hope of getting a little publicity. I also managed to buy a birthday card and something else for Dot. After the Dragon Hall set up I met Dot at the supermarket to stock up for the Evetts’ visit next week.

This afternoon I arrived home to find Phyllis Seaman visiting with a birthday card. Afterwards (and after Norwich lost 1-2 to Arsenal) Dot and I had a game of table tennis and then cleared the garage so that we could get Dot’s car in next week. So a few toys made the return journey to the loft.

Changes in the living room

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Jill Cann (left), mother of the skirting board man. You never know when these pictures are going to come in useful.

Dot’s birthday is on the horizon, and for reasons too obvious to mention, she had her present three days early – and wore it to Dipples open day champagne-and-canape-fest at lunchtime. It’s a rather nice bracelet. She will be wearing it again tonight as we dine at the Norfolk Mead with the Robinsons. It’s seemed a long day, partly because much of it has been spent shifting furniture around following the arrival of our new TV unit, which looks very good. It was especially satisfying that I managed all the wire reconnections without anything not working. Yet.

The living room now looks rather nice, as Phil acknowledged when he dropped a package off for Dot earlier. A little more shifting around (though not much) when the skirting board man arrived to look at what needed to be done to fix the base of the walls following the removal of the skirting heating. He turned out to be a former pupil of Dot’s and the son of one of the Tuckswood teaching assistants, Jill Cann.

Yesterday was even longer. The man who installed the radiators arrived just after 8am and was here till very late afternoon. He was extremely conscientious and careful, which is what you want form a central heating engineer. It’s fantastic to have some real heat in the living room, even though we had to get through a cold day to get it. To be honest it could have been a lot worse, and we didn’t even resort to an electric fire. It was very still and not too cold. I went our for a walk in the morning for an hour or so and sat on St James Hill (while composing a poem) without feeling in the least uncomfortable.