{"id":7150,"date":"2026-07-23T10:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=7150"},"modified":"2026-07-23T10:25:40","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:25:40","slug":"odd-sermon-windows-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/?p=7150","title":{"rendered":"Odd talk, windows open"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Bee-heavy fl0wers at Des’s place, where Dot is watering<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Warm and dry on Friday 17 July<\/strong>. Felt quite ill at first, but much better later. Edited pix and updated bank account. After lunch went with Dot to Morrisons to stock up. Quite busy, but young checkout guy and his female supervisor were quite funny. Congested while driving back. Des and Chris leaving tomorrow for a month\u2019s rail excursion; so last-minute directions about plants, and he put garden rubbish in our bin. Good street meet, with Des, Chris, Ciara, Sarah, Matt, Angela, Sam and (briefly) Joe. Nice chat with Ciara especially: Phoebe has boyfriend. Cooked sausages and we watched Tour De France as usual: Pidcock did well. Then an old Death in Palestine<\/em> and a new comedy, Ann Droid<\/em>, about a robot carer, which was funnier than it sounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday <\/strong>– Started very cloudy and a bit chilly, but sun came out later. Checked my sermon for tomorrow while Dot went to garden centre. Earlier Des and Chris left by train for Europe and a month\u2019s holiday. Watched Josh Kerr break the world mile record and Keely win her 800m despite the presence of Femke Bol. Cooked cottage pie, and Dot did some fruit. Advertising board was falling over: so I laid it on the ground. Later watched another couple of episodes of Clarkson\u2019s Farm<\/em>, then Tour de France and finally the World Cup third place match, in which England beat France 6-4 after having been 4-0 up at half time and 4-3 not long afterwards! Saka got a hat trick and Bellingham the winner.\u00a0 Debbie fell off her bike and won\u2019t be able to lead tomorrow; I offered, but Liz Cannon is doing it.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunday <\/strong>–\u00a0 Quite chilly for the time of year, but Judy still had all the windows open at church and looked deeply shocked when I said it was cold in there. Nevertheless she did relent when David Cannon asked for a window above his head to be closed. I did a guest sermon which was quite well received. Dot said it came over well. Matt was solo on piano: Anna was in Scotland but had chosen the hymns anyway. I don\u2019t know why. Stayed behind for tea and a bite of fruit and again saw Leanne on the way out: think she is having a bit of trouble with her children. Parking difficult again, but good for steps of course. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watched the World Cup Final in the evening.\u00a0 Argentina were a bunch of thugs as usual, and the referee let them get on with it most of the time – again as usual. However he eventually sent someone off, and Spain won 1-0 in extra time, thank goodness. Needless to say several Argentina players assaulted Spanish players after the final whistle, but I expect they\u2019ll get away with it. Getting a very bad press though – everywhere except in Argentina.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday <\/strong>– Bit worried. Not only forgot to finish Sunday\u2019s blog, but didn\u2019t do today\u2019s at all. Very unlike me. Also felt tired today, but this may have been something to do with my trying to cut down the ivy that was reaching for the top of the wall on the Library Wood side of the house. Eventually managed to slice the bottom part away with Dot holding the ladder. Cut some other ivy away too. Dot also did quite a bit of work in the garden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the afternoon we went up on the bus to Boots for Dot to get her new glasses, but they only had one of three pairs. Complimented one of the assistants on her green dress, which matched her lanyard, but this didn\u2019t help, though she seemed pleased. Still, we came away with one new pair, and Dot got some cod liver oil too.\u00a0 We then tried various exits from Castle Mall before suddenly emerging on to Timberhill, which was quite satisfying. However, from there we simply went to catch the bus home, which was a bit of an anti-climax. Entirely my fault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we sort of missed lunch and only had sea bass for supper, which is not very filling. Watched cricket and two episodes of a new thriller, In the Dark,<\/em> and then remembered we had to put the bins out (including Des\u2019s, of course); so we did that. David and Chrissy are on holiday too, near Collingwood on Georgian Bay. Sent us some nice pix. I think Andy Burnham became Prime Minister at some point during the day. Bit of a cloudy day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tuesday <\/strong>– Dot went up into the city in mid-morning to meet Bridget and Janet for coffee in St Stephen\u2019s Church caf\u00e9. In the end Eleanor joined them too, having met Bridget en route. I had a bath, and then tried to catch up with some stuff, including getting the bins in. Dot called in to Boots and managed to get her other two pairs of glasses, which had just arrived. Meanwhile I was entertaining the gas man, who came to do our annual service and found no problems. Yippee! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same could not be said for Jeremy Clarkson: we saw the end of his latest series, where he got prostate cancer followed by what appeared to be a reaction to his operation, and where had a go at DEFRA for what seem to be ridiculous rules about cattle with (or without) TB. All quite moving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Felt very tired again in the afternoon and lay down for a while; also started reading another birthday present. I am also playing through games in the chess book David got me. Tony Miles to start with – always one of my favourite players. Watched time trial day on Tour de France, won by a Belgian on Belgium Day. Cooked lasagne and broke plate. Interesting because I dropped it but managed to catch the meal that was on it – not easy. Cloudy most of the day, sunny later. Spoke to Ciara and Sean while waiting for Dot to come home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wednesday<\/strong> – Again, cloudy at first, some sun later. Still dry. FaceTime with David and Chrissy, who are on holiday near Collingwood in a rather nice property, as Roger would say. Dot spent much of the day with her friends Joyce and Sandra at North Walsham, enjoying a nice lunch at the garden centre. Meanwhile I walked up to the Rosary, which was easier than I thought. Very dry up there, which is sort of attractive. Noticed that the council have repaired the path\/road at the top where I fell over a few years ago. They don\u2019t hang around. On the way back I had a chat with a guy who was doing up a house\/flats on Rosary Road. Looked good. The house, not the guy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cleared up, made the bed and watched some of the last round of Open golf while I had lunch. Not terribly exciting, perhaps because little British interest. Still, it was won by a New Zealander, who was (a) nice and (b) not American. His name was Fox. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Started doing charity money. Dot got home about 3.30pm. Had a bit of tooth or jaw trouble early on, but quite a bit better by evening.\u00a0 I had fish on toast for supper, followed by a scone and gooseberries that Dot had got me. She just had a scone because she\u2019d had quite a big lunch. We both went over to water Des\u2019s flowers, then watched Tour de France (again, not enough British interest), plus a bit of Hundred cricket, which was very boring and not cricket. Also a bit of Ice Road Truckers <\/em>and University Challenge<\/em>. Over 5000 steps today.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warm and dry on Friday 17 July. Felt quite ill at first, but much better later. Edited pix and updated bank account. After lunch went with Dot to Morrisons to stock up. Quite busy, but young checkout guy and his female supervisor were quite funny. Congested while driving back. Des and Chris leaving tomorrow for … Continue reading Odd talk, windows open<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150","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=7150"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7153,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7150\/revisions\/7153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog360.back2sq1.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}