An Autobiography of an Ancient Athlete & Antiquarian

AUTOBIOGRAPHY II3 The illuminations were very fine and the lavish flare from the Gas Works startled us greatly as we walked home, for it looked just as though our house was on fire ! This month I began systematic work at the Castle "Museum, calendaring the Enrolled Deeds there, and kept at it pretty closely, doing about 60 a day, lunching at Grix's to save time, where the grill was excellent though it was a triflle embarrassing to be called upon to pay for it before one was trusted with the knife and fork. On the 19th July I went to the Surrey Archreological Meeting at Ripley, Sutton Court, and Guild– ford-a very hot day, but we improvised shade with umbrellas lashed to mop :..ticks. Our garden party was on the 28th, and early in Augt.. c:;t I cycled round by Fakenham 'to see Barron's Hall and t!J.e Whissonsett Scandinavian Cross, both of which afterwa1ds formed the subjects of papers in the N. & N.A.S. tran~actions. On the 9th was the Aylsham meeting of that Society round Mannington and Blickling, to which I cycled (and cycled well for an old man), doing 37 miles and beating all the other cyclists. My son Gilly went to sea from Hull in the '' Donna Francisca," a very big sailing tramp, to which he stuck for a long while, and I went up on r3th August to arrange for his outfit and took the opportunity of seeing my old sisters again. At the Primrose League Gymkhana on the 23rd, my daughter Betty won the ball-picking and the ladies' bicycle race, though riding a very heavy machine. We were all of us physically fit just then, for on the next day I had one of the longest tricycle rides I ever had (about 60 miles, not so bad for a man aged 57): round by Holt, Sheringham and Cromer, my son, J .B.R., hopelessly failing (on a bicycle) to give me half-an-hour's start and coming home tired by rail. Other pleasant rides this autumn were round Binham, Wells and Burnham, where I met a clever young architect, named Shepherd, and went over the ruined abbey there with him, and so back by Lynn and Dereham, and another to Parson Back's to see his beautiful garden at Carleton Rode. At the end of August I had a long ride round Ade and Yarmouth-the new road being as dismal as ever, about 40 miles.