Tag Archives: richard

In the midst of life

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Andrew and I in the sensory garden at Brandon
Andrew and I in the sensory garden at Brandon

Heads still spinning, we arrived home this afternoon from Caddington to find that Mairead’s husband Simon had been found dead near a railway bridge. I spoke to him a few days ago and know he had been in a lot of pain and had poor prospects of improvement, but he seemed cheerful enough, as he always did. Obviously Mairead is devastated, but she is made of stern stuff: the children are the same ages as our grandchildren. We’ve offered to help, but she has family with her at the moment.

We’d spent the night at Caddington with the children while David went swimming on Monday evening and to London this morning. We delivered them to friends at Markyate for a sleepover before leaving at lunchtime. Oliver is programming his own computer game: most impressive. Amy’s ears are adjusting to being pierced, and she looks sophisticated.

We spent most of yesterday at Coventry with Andrew, taking him to Brandon Marsh nature reserve and visiting several bird hides. The locals were very friendly. We saw a heron feeding, some green sandpipers, numerous geese, a cormorant or three and what may have been a young hobby. Sadly, no kingfisher. Andrew was surprisingly interested. We had lunch in the cafe there: steak pie for the two of us and salmon fishcakes for Dot. Later we had tea and cake in Memorial Park. We were fortunate with the weather: the forecast rain turned out to be very slight and occasional.

We had arrived in Coventry at the Premier Inn (south) on Leamington Road around 5.30pm on the Sunday. We had originally planned to spend the earlier part of the weekend with the Coomes in London, but this was cancelled early on Saturday morning because David had a very painful shoulder. Instead Dot and I went out on Saturday for a meal at Jamie’s, which was excellent, and went to church on Sunday, where we had the unusual experience of simply being part of the congregation. The new vicar was leading Communion, and the atmosphere at the service was very good.

Back on Wednesday last week Richard brought the girls round for lunch (spaghetti bolognaise), and I had a game of table tennis with each of them, imparting extravagant praise when they managed to hit the ball. It was a nice few hours. When they left Dot and I retrieved the Mazda 2 from the garage , where it was getting its first service. In the morning I had walked much of the way home, but got a bus some of the way, discovering en route  that getting through Tombland was a challenge for pedestrians as well as cars – a challenge I failed, ending up going past the Adam & Eve and cutting through to the Close.

Tuesday night’s Cake and Compline went well, with a full complement of attendees. Still jet-lagged, we just managed to keep our eyes open.

Losing track of time

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Dot, Sue and Fred on the beach near Beeston
Dot, Sue and Fred on the beach near Beeston

An exceptionally busy week goes by, and the busyness continues. This afternoon I head for Mundesley for a Paston trustees’ meeting, and tomorrow I drive to Coventry to visit Andrew. Fortunately my health continues to improve. But back to the past…

Tuesday last week saw another Archant coffee morning, this one with the addition of Maryta, plus Brian Caldecott and Tricia. Clearly an EDP subs’ takeover is in the offing. Good to see Brian, who looked well although he isn’t (he has rheumatoid arthritis).

Saw Maryta again the next day, when the Hendersons took us on a North Norfolk trip, starting with a longish dog walk at Felbrigg Hall, where we saw frogs mating and enjoyed a light lunch, continuing at Beacon Hill (Roman Camp), where they lost the dog – sadly not permanently; it returned to Dot and me while they were off down the ravine looking for it – and on to Blakeney, where we had a shorter walk and then an excellent afternoon tea at the Blakeney Hotel, overlooking the marshes. Discovered to our surprise that the Hendersons had not been to Blakeney before: that’s what comes of living south of Norwich. Weather fine, with a chilly wind.

On Thursday Dot had a violin lesson with a friend from the orchestra and completely lost track of time, so that I had to ring her and remind her to come home and see Sam, Lucy and Elliott, who had dropped in during a short visit to Norwich. Elliott very smiley and crawly; Sam less so.

On Friday we were off to the north coast again, this time to visit Fred and Sue at Beeston Regis. We visited Cookie’s at Malthouse and the called at the Cley Wildlife centre, which has been much improved, despite being pretty good to start with. Our neighbours the Norfolk Wildlife Trust can’t be short of money. From the centre the marshes looked much more open; most of the trees had disappeared following the tidal surge.

On the way back to Beeston we stopped at Sheringham, where I had a delicious gooseberry ice cream and we watched a girl called Karen lovingly construct a message in stone on the beach to her boyfriend Len (we’re making several assumptions here). Back at Beeston we took a stroll along the beach, where I managed to lose the eyepiece to my binoculars. Again, a lovely dry day, but with a chilly wind in the evening. It even rained on our way home, but that was probably very localised.

On Saturday Dot spent most of the day (if not all of it) preparing for the visit of Chronicle and spouses (Rob, Penny, James, Ann) for an evening meal. This was supposed to include a discussion about the progress were were making on the next Chronicle project, but we had such an interesting discussion on other matters (some theological) that we never got to that. I will raise it today when I see Rob for lunch.

Yesterday I preached a bit, and Eleanor led a Holy Communion in her lovely understated way. Vicky came, as did Ruth and Steve, so we had four children in the congregation. We have discovered that the new vicar is gay, or if not exactly gay, unnecessarily happy. In the afternoon Richard came round with the delightful Maddy and Darcy, and we had an Easter egg hunt followed by other excitement and a certain amount of food. Norwich scored a last-minute goal to beat Bolton, which meant Dot was pretty happy too.

A series of tanka I wrote for Lent has been accepted for inclusion in the spring edition of the Atlas Poetica, published in America. Surprised and delighted.

Crawling into another year

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Amy helping Daddy to relax in Prezzo's
Amy helping Daddy to relax in Prezzo’s

Feeling very down and tired, which is not the ideal start to a new year. Slept very little last night, stirred myself just enough to get Dot a cup of tea at 7.20am before she left for a P4C session at Heather Avenue, then lay awake till after 9.30. Eventually had a bath and crawled downstairs about 11.30am. Cannot work up enthusiasm for anything.

We did have a lovely time with David and the children, managing to do something every day. Last Tuesday (the 30th) we visited Jessie, and on the way there I dropped off and delivered a cheque to Rob Knee, having a brief chat with him and Penny before walking the rest of the way. Cold but moderately invigorating, I seem to remember.

On New Year’s Eve we had a pizza and drink at the Hendersons’ at lunch time. In the evening Roger came round for a meal, and the festivities included the mandatory quizzes – including two very hard photo quizzes from the children which took us up to midnight. There was a brief concert from Queen on TV, with their new (very good) lead singer.

On New Year’s Day, after something of a lie-in, we all went to see The Penguins of Madagascar at the cinema, and I only dozed off once or twice. It was actually quite reasonable, and the children enjoyed it.

The next day Birgit and Joe came round in the morning, and after a light lunch we headed for the Maddermarket to see The Borrowers, which was really excellent, making light of the obvious problems in staging. The actors were superb, and it was just the right length. By accident we got five seats behind each other downstairs, and this caused some concern until it became clear that the adjacent seats were not going to be filled, and so David and the children were able to sit together.

On Saturday Richard, Maddy and Darcy came round both before and after lunch at Prezzo’s, and when they departed in late afternoon, David and the children packed and headed home while we did a bit in the house.

On Sunday we woke to a frozen street, and it took me some time to get the car going. Even when it did it insisted on telling us that the tyre pressure was wrong: not sure yet if this was a result of the cold, or if there is indeed a genuine problem. A visual check revealed nothing obvious.

Rather an odd morning at church, or maybe it was just me. Eleanor, who was presiding at Communion, had a bad cough and so Dot distributed the bread while I sang. Phil was away, as were several other people, but we got a few from Carrie’s group there, plus a Latvian couple who wanted to have their baby baptised. When we left, Anna and a helping group were solving a problem with one of the curtains.

I had a quick look for a stopcock, which Stuart has been writing e-mails about, but couldn’t see anything obvious. Back home I tried to get the new Apple TV to work (David kindly bought it for us at Christmas), but after some partial success failed almost completely. On the plus side, we can now watch YouTube and see Flickr on the TV.

Problems with paperwork

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A rare picture of my cousin Adrian, now sadly dead, at 67 Brian Avenue with Dot, Mum and an early version of David
A rare picture of my cousin Adrian, now sadly dead, at 67 Brian Avenue with Dot, Mum and an early version of David

After reaching the summit of the travel insurance mountain, I collapsed on the church account ridge. After attempting to complete the first form yesterday – only to find it was mainly irrelevant and unanswerable – I felt blood rushing around my brain and decided to resign as treasurer. I sent an e-mail to Nicholas and Howard. I also wrote a letter to NatWest, heavily critical of their approach to getting new customers.

Later in the day I got an e-mail from Howard, asking to come round and talk to me at teatime. He eventually arrived about an hour late, after being held up in a traffic jam, and we discussed his holiday in Burma, plus a little bit about the problems I’d had with banks. It turns out he’s had similar problems, but he offered to go to TSB, where he knew someone, and see if anything could be done more simply.

This morning he rang to say that he thought they could sort it out. Apparently he had opened the account in the first place and was able to discuss the whole thing on a different basis. I should have got him involved earlier.

To celebrate, I managed to complete the Gift Aid claim form which, in an act of  monumental stupidity, the tax people provide only in a download format that will not open on a Mac.  I mean, what’s wrong with Excel? I can only conclude that financial people go out of their way to drive you insane.

So I had to download additional software. My first attempt wouldn’t open either because it didn’t have the right certificate and I needed a later version (chance would be a fine thing). So I ended up with something called Libre, which did work. Then the form was so unclear that I had three attempts at filling it in before it accepted what I’d entered.

I haven’t decided yet whether to go through with my resignation as treasurer. I would certainly like to. The St Luke’s treasurer, who is new, is down with pneumonia, so the year-end accounts should be interesting.

Yesterday I also missed my second funeral in the space of a week when a slight hiccup occurred in Dot’s invitation to Richard to come round  for lunch. When I told her that the funeral (for John Care) was at 1pm she texted Richard to tell him to come earlier, but although he received it, he didn’t read it; and so turned up at 12. Judging that the living were more important than the dead (a tricky call) we had lunch and a long discussion with Richard, and I wrote an apologetic letter to Jonathan.

I did however manage to get to Surrey Chapel this afternoon for a thanksgiving service for John Tillett, the church organist and the man who helped us get football started at Surrey by finding us a pitch at Eaton Park. Also a lovely man – one of those people who was kind and generous to everyone. The church was packed, and I met Phil outside and sat with him. I said hello to a few people, but I knew very few really, and I left Phil chatting in the end.

Dot is now at a governors’ meeting. We missed supper, because she got heavily involved with a North Walsham history page on Facebook and started recognising people she knew. It got a bit out of control after that.

Christmas unwrapped

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An old slide of Dot in the early 1970s with out Fiat 500.
An old slide of Dot in the early 1970s with our Fiat 500 – or was it 600?

Midnight Communion on Christmas Eve was a lovely service, but by the time we emerged at around 12.30 on Christmas morning it was pouring with rain and pretty cold, so my task of fixing notices to the gates and locking them for Christmas Day proved rather less than straightforward, especially as I had to wait until everyone had passed through before locking them.

Christmas Day was – well, Christmas Day, and of course we spent most of it unwrapping, cooking and eating. It was lovely having David and the children with us. Boxing Day was also fun, if a little less frantic. David, Oliver and I went to see Norwich lose 2-1 to Fulham while Dot and Amy went to see Frozen at the cinema. The weather was sunny but cold, though relatively still in between the storms that hit different parts of the country both before  and after Christmas.

On the 27th we had invited Richard Beales and his daughters, Maddison and Darcy, for lunch (chicken curry), and we had a lovely time with them. The children got on well – Oliver (nice boy that he is) looking after Darcy (4) and Amy playing with Maddison (6) after the latter had got over an initial burst of shyness. We found out a lot of background stuff about Richard and the business, and he and David got on well. All of them left at about the same time – around 7.15pm.

The children transferred to Vicky the following day after she had returned from Ireland in a Force 11 gale, but not before they had gone with David to Heathrow to meet Chrissy, who is staying with him for a few days.

I was up fairly early on Saturday to go and fetch Andrew from Coventry. Didn’t feel too well on the way over (I think the fried potato was starting to go off) and the traffic was heavy, so it took about three hours, with a stop at Cambridge Services. The journey back, which ended just after dark, was a bit quicker, and we managed to get home just before the football crowds emerged from Carrow Road, with Norwich having achieved a double home Christmas failure, losing 1-0 to Manchester United.

Yesterday we took Andrew to St Augustine’s for a really nice service led by Phil, with Carrie preaching. Dot read, and I did the prayers. Andrew had a long conversation with Harriet – not sure what about, but probably him – and Anandi and David were there: they are house-sitting for Howard and Anna, who are in Burma with Nicola and Beth. At least, we think they are: they didn’t take their phones.

On the way home we called in to see Joy and Phil, who were under the impression Andrew wasn’t coming home till the next day. Andrew had some presents for them. We stayed only short while because Joy was clearly tired.

In the afternoon Andrew and I walked up to the Rosary, and I was delighted to find that the flowers I’d put on Mum and Dad’s grave before Christmas were still there, despite the strong winds and rain in between. Andrew cleared the area of fallen branches, and we visited one or two other graves of well-known names from the past.

We will leave for Coventry after early lunch today. I am about to go out and get some money for Andrew, and perhaps a present for the staff at Minster Lodge. Louise Robinson has left her car in the drive while she goes to the sales in London. Her idea of heaven (I quote) and mine of hell.

Down to the Plantation Garden

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Jessie and Dot in the Plantation Garden (iPhone picture)

At last the furniture has returned, and after a few minor alarms, it turned out to be all complete, including brackets and screws. The bookshelves proved a bit tricky to get right, but everything else was pretty straightforward, if a bit tiring. So now we have a spanking brand new room, and the roof is repaired. And so far we haven’t paid a penny. This will change shortly, 0f course.

After getting everything in order, I relaxed by playing a tournament chess game against Norman Thomas, and won fairly easily. My game score totally vanished on its way home, and I had to reconstruct the game while I could remember it. I even returned to the club in case I’d left it there, but no…

On Tuesday we restarted the Tuesday Group, which went pretty well, with much catch-up talk. Then yesterday Jessie came up by bus for lunch, and we all visited the impressive sunken Plantation Garden off Earlham Road in the afternoon. There was an autumnal wind, but quite a bit of sun, so it was a pleasant excursion, especially as I had never actually seen the garden. Bit of a challenge parking in the area, but still… After tea I drove Dot and Jessie to North Walsham, and Dot stayed with her while I attended a meeting of the Paston Trustees, where I took the minutes. Lucy seemed a bit better, but Jo is very stressed. Rob was calm as ever.

Today I have spent much of my time writing a sermon for Sunday. It came rather more easily than the last one; I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing or not. Tomorrow it’s Joan’s funeral, and I’ve just heard that my “uncle” Richard – the widower of my aunt Vi in South Africa – has also died. I didn’t know him very well, and he was in his nineties, but it’s always sad when someone in your family goes.