Local history

I was at home and busy at my desk for most of the day. Lots of festival stuff to be done. Emails were flying between committee members at a rate of knots.

I walked to the surgery to breathe some fresh air and pick up a letter for Mum. On my way home, I popped into the graveyard. I had heard that one of the church members spent a lot of time and elbow grease to clean up this gravestone.

The village church has just celebrated 200 years since it opened and this is the grave of the master mason and his wife and daughter. He did not live very long after the church was built in 1818.

Ours is one of the Greenwich Hospital churches, built on land that used to belong to the Earl of Derwentside before he was executed for his part in the 1715 uprising against the king. The land was gifted to Greenwich Hospital.

Several churches were built locally and retired naval chaplains were sent to be the incumbents. Some flourished and others did not.

This evening I met Julie for a meal in Cafe Vivo - which is closed for refurbishment, but I'm sure I made a reservation online. Hmm.

We ate in Piccolino nearby, then saw a disappointing play at The Live Theatre. "Two PInts"  by Roddy Doyle is a conversation between two men in a pub. There are some great one liners, but it was hard to follow, mainly because the actors had their backs to the audience. The language was choice and seemed to amuse a lot of the audience. I'm not precious about swearing but I thought it was gratuitous and not funny.

We return on Thursday for a different play, but I would not recommend this one.
Stop Press: Have just read a review of the play and discovered that we left in the second interval. We could have seen more!


In other news: Oscar can now go in and out through an open (wide open) cat flap. Clever boy.