Tripping in Durham

. Writers met on Monday went smoothly, Tuesday I had a vile sore throat (actually it was obvious that I had it at writers the night before as I was coughing rather a lot) and I decided that a day in was called for. Not least because I was coughing so much conversation would be difficult. Also I needed to be in work on Wednesday and Thursday so take the day on Tuesday and hope that things would sort themselves out for the rest of the week.

Wednesday evening I was at Herringthorpe for a meeting of NAG (Needs Assessment Group) it really should be N-NAG (Neighbourhood-needs assessment group). Actually the reason Neighbourhood is probably missing is they have not decided what is their neighbourhood. This means that before we start asking about Needs at all we have got to start investigating how to define the neighbourhood. It was raised that about a third of the congregation lived beyond the Wickersley Roundabout (so one of the boundaries needs to go through the Wickersley Roundabout as obviously beyond that is not local)! There was also debate on whether to include "East Herringthorpe" I thought it might have been East Rotherham but on checking there is a place called East Herringthorpe which is North of the Church Buildings. One of the major tasks of the group will be to define the remit of itself.

Thursday was a normal day. Friday was my day off, it was a mixed day because I spent the morning coding interview transcripts in a very broad brush fashion, basically as I am reviewing the transcription and trying to make a sensible choice about what to transcribe from the interviews that are left. On the afternoon I did a trip down town to try and sort the last things out for holiday. This was really getting money out.

Saturday I had organised a Ship of Fools North East Meet. This time it was in Durham. There were about twelve of us there with two apologies although there are far more Ship of Fools members in the area. It was a beautiful day as was the one last Summer in Leeds. I cannot talk of the Winter one as I was off with a migraine, although it was in York. We basically pootled the whole day long, going between coffee shop and coffee shop, with a short spell in the Cathedral, as they were filming Songs of Praise in it while we were there and a walk along the river. I took lots of photos are up on Flickr if people want to see. Unfortunately on going down from the station I failed to see a half step down and as my foot tilted over so did and ended up flat on my face. Nothing seriously wrong but a bruised knee that gets stiff if I don't move it regularly.

Today has been quiet. Officially I am tidying and preparing to go. I have at least done a wash and sorted out some papers but yesterday took a lot out of me and I went back to bed mid morning. So I was at evening service tonight rather than morning worship. A small congregation and not the people I was expecting. The evening service seems to be more charismatic in style, although that maybe just who the pianist is. They even sung one I was not familiar with, which is a rarity. Somehow I seem to have kept more up to date with charismatic worship than I thought I had.  The "Word" part of the service was led by Lighthouse: Rotherham Homeless Project. Afterwards the story came out of one of the church members "supporting" a drug user to the level of several thousand. The project was willing to investigate and see what was really going on, in the hopes that the drain would stop.