{"id":2451,"date":"2012-07-24T10:58:45","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T09:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=2451"},"modified":"2012-07-24T10:58:45","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T09:58:45","slug":"about-as-perfect-as-it-gets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=2451","title":{"rendered":"About as perfect as it gets"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_2452\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2452\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/P1090516.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2452\" title=\"P1090516\" src=\"http:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/P1090516-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/P1090516-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/P1090516.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2452\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dave and Anandi Brennan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>At last summer has arrived, and we are bathed in warm sunshine. Yesterday Adrian and Clarissa arrived in their Potter Heigham boat, <em>Gliding Light<\/em>, and moored at the bottom of the road. We joined them for a drink in the Compleat Angler (bottom deck), and later they \u00a0came up to ours for a kind of high tea in the garden \u2013 sitting outside till about 10pm! They had their friends Brian and Celia with them, and we had a good evening. The weather is set to continue as we pick up Oliver and Amy later today.<\/p>\n<p>An eventful few days, it must be said, starting last Thursday with a haircut and visit to a poetry session on John Betjeman in the Narthex at St John&#8217;s RC Cathedral. Still cool and wet then, and the session was not brilliant. The members of the group were less than inspiring, and leader Hilary M was not at her best, feeling the effects of blood sugar loss and having problems with the equipment.<\/p>\n<p>Friday <em>was<\/em> brilliant, however. The surveyor eventually turned up and didn&#8217;t inspire an awful lot of confidence. We decided to let the insurers supply a builder for the ceiling repairs (skimming, replacing some plasterboard, and making the ceiling good), but the roof is not covered (if you see what I mean). So I have contacted Mr Bunn the Builder &#8211; well, he&#8217;s a roofer, actually. He came this morning and did inspire confidence. He&#8217;s going to make the roof watertight in the next couple of days and do a complete job on the &#8220;valley&#8221; and tiles a couple of weeks later. Needless to say the roof featured things he had never seen before.<\/p>\n<p>But that&#8217;s not why Friday was brilliant. That was down to Anandi&#8217;s wedding at the Cathedral, which was a one-off. Not that it was perfect: the sermon was too long, we couldn&#8217;t see clearly, and we had difficulty hearing the speeches at the reception because Blackfriars Hall has lousy acoustics. But it was a fine day and it all had a lovely naturalness and simplicity \u2013 for instance, the bride and groom walked from the cathedral to Blackfriars. After the service we had champagne and nibbles in the cloisters for quite a long time: lots of people from St Augustine&#8217;s were there, but only Dot and I (plus the vicar and his wife) were invited to the reception. In the cloisters we had music from an <em>a cappella<\/em> group which had appeared on TV but which was composed mainly of friends of the groom \u2013 who sang a little bit as a tribute to his wife! Both Anandi and her new husband Dave are so likeable it&#8217;s frightening.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2453\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2453\" style=\"width: 192px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/P1090552.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2453\" title=\"P1090552\" src=\"http:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/P1090552-192x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"192\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/P1090552-192x300.jpg 192w, https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/P1090552.jpg 410w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 192px) 100vw, 192px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2453\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Debbie and Neil with (the Rev) Heather Cracknell, who took the service<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On Saturday another &#8220;wedding&#8221;: this time a renewal of vows after 25 years by Debbie and Neil, two friends from St Luke&#8217;s. By now the weather was stunning, and the setting \u2013 Ranworth Church on the Broads \u2013 was equally gorgeous. Debbie went the whole hog with a white dress, bridesmaids and all the trimmings \u2013 we think because their actual wedding had been a registry office affair and very low-key. Cake and tea afterwards in the church grounds (it has a church hall cafe) completed the picture, together with a trip up the church tower, with its spectacular views.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the day Colin came round and cut the hedge, and I went to the launch of Joe&#8217;s book, <em>Journeying with Abraham,\u00a0<\/em>at St Andrew&#8217;s Church, Eaton. Couple of dozen people there, which was encouraging for him, and I had a chat with both him and Birgit. Then at the end of a very packed day, Dot and I went round to the Higbees for a meal, which was very relaxing. As a result of that, Alan H came round yesterday to put right a problem with the lighting in the loft that he had installed.<\/p>\n<p>Bright day on Sunday: after a nice service at church, with Geoff debuting as preacher, we relaxed. Dot spent a lot of time gardening, and I watched quite a bit of the Open and saw the end of the Tour de France, with Wiggins in yellow, Froome second and Cavendish winning the final sprint. Which is about as perfect as it gets in the world of cycling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At last summer has arrived, and we are bathed in warm sunshine. Yesterday Adrian and Clarissa arrived in their Potter Heigham boat, Gliding Light, and moored at the bottom of the road. We joined them for a drink in the Compleat Angler (bottom deck), and later they \u00a0came up to ours for a kind of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=2451\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">About as perfect as it gets<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[864,1709,939,1706,1710,1041,1426,1711,1532,1443,1267],"class_list":["post-2451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adrian","tag-anandi","tag-cathedral","tag-ceiling","tag-debbie","tag-hedge","tag-joe","tag-ranworth","tag-roberts","tag-roof","tag-wedding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2451"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2455,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451\/revisions\/2455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}