From the weekend after the jubilee

I am going to do highlights rather than the whole thing, actually because I can’t remember far enough back to do a blow by blow account. The week before last was quieter. I suppose a highlight was going around for a meal with my friend Margo. I have sussed now what to take for her children to drink. Marks and Spencers still lemonade works a treat. Her son likes proper lemonade and her daughter does not like fizzy drinks so this suits both of them without seeming to choose one over another. Her daughter is Sam’s age and her son I suspect is between Jenny and Cait. He is also a proper book worm. It is pleasant to go out for a meal with friends and Margo is a good cook and her daughter a good baker.


Otherwise the Jubilee weekend was spent editing. alright so there was a migraine thrown in with that. I managed to reduce the chapter by over 4000 words, it still needs to diet further, not least because I am realising I have to include the way the congregations relate to the minister which is interesting, This past week I have really started the next chapter, although it was writing the relevant appendix. As with all chapters at this stage I am feeling quite a lot of trepidation but I am now at least confident that I know how to get there. This one is centred around worship, as such it will include the material I have already turned into papers. However those will also have to be substantially rewritten. The one on Cafe Church is going to have to be one on subsidiary and occasional services. That would alter the focus quite substantially. the one on hymns can probably remain largely intact. There will also be one on communion, not about who can have communion but about the actual liturgy used. There is definitely one of baptism which therefore leaves me with prayers and sermons and I may have little to say on those. Then I have to pull together the ideas around worship and what is going on with respect to identity.. This chapter should also build on the previous two.


The week was otherwise quiet and I was looking forward to having Thursday to actually get some development work done, it looked hopeful when I got up but over breakfast I developed cramps due to time of the month and when painkillers did not settle them I went to bed with a hot water bottle. I thought I would be up in the afternoon and indeed the cramps stopped quite quickly but then I went off to sleep and did not wake until after 2pm which is too late to go into work So I finally did the reading of a couple of chapters from a couple of books that I have used in my thesis. I had read about the chapters but had not read the actual chapters. One problem is that in one case I have had to use a collection rather than the original (in the other though obscure enough copies of the original were available for Oxfam to provide me with one).

Friday was a bit of an odd day, I did not settle very well for a variety of reasons, I eventually started to make Minerva (she is amigurumi that I created for myself. An owl (owlet) with an eyepatch and walking boots. I googled owl designs but did not like any of them really, was far happier producing a cape like cover for the back rather than the cartoon style wings quite a few of the patterns had. Birds do not use wings as alternatives to arms, and if she does use anything like hands it is going to be her beak. The aim was to produce something I could use to create a small image to use in work rather than my walking boots but it also gave me an example of what I do which I could take to writers group. Not sure if anyone will want one but it is something I can do with relatively low hassle. I think I may have to do further work to get this right. Maybe I need to print the photograph and then paint it to get what I want for the image.


Today I was at church, one of the Henstridges family was being baptised so the church was pretty full. I have noticed that people tend not to sit in the rows by the pillars. I sent an email before last weekend asking Sheila to look for elders to serve at July’s communion, as with not serving and not regularly being around church I find time chasing people to do things time consuming of thesis time. It was simply a reminder. My mistake was not making it clear. She interpreted it as me not doing table elder. I wondered why she wanted the case. This was a communication failure on both our parts. I guess I sounded apologetic because I felt awkward reminding her and therefore she interpreted that I was apologising for something. Whatever it is, it is a miscommunication and the responsibility lies with both of us. So now we have to stop people from panicking.

After a Baptism

I am going to try highlights but I am trying to recall what has happened and not finding it that easy. I think this is possibly because things have been dominated quite a bit by thesis writing. The weekend before I rather got distracted. I had a recalled a quote from Lord of the Rings for my thesis and I needed to trace it. It took longer than I imagined to find it but I ended up spending quite a bit of the Saturday reacquainting myself with Lord of the Rings. I had forgotten what a rollicking good story J.R.R. Tolkien can be and would decide to read a page to check for the quote and then realise I had read twenty pages without stopping. This weekend I am at the changeover point on my second chapter. Upto now I have been writing in the current chapter the easy bits, which are the detailed description of what went on that I see as important. The big challenge with this is the selection of material. There really is far too much stuff there and that is without dealing in detail with the interviews. From the few times I have done in depth analysis on the interviews, as opposed to simple reviewing there has been tons of stuff just below the surface, at least enough for another thesis and I am having to keep myself from being distracted by it. I am however moving into doing the theory for this section. I seem to suffer a loss of confidence as I approach this, yet once I am really writing it I am able to do so. This may be the legacy of having moved so much out of the areas where I know I am capable into an area which I still feel a novice in. I have at least got through the totally terrible first draft (did not even both computerising it) but have started computerising a second draft. This coming week is going to be interesting as I try and redraft that section so that it is ready for me to fit the chapter together next weekend, all but the last section which is relating the stuff talked about back to Reformed Piety.

Meanwhile Fleur sent me a flyer on a meeting at Westminster College on the topic of Reformed Spirituality . Now it is organised by the by the United Reformed Retreat Group So I spent quite a bit of time sorting that out. I know I really should apply to the retreat group but have not got around to doing it yet and I had to pay Westminster up front.

Work wise it has been busy, the senior bosses have this last week caught onto the fact that the move is happening in the immediate future (this weekend and next) and have therefore been driving the secretaries batty with , have you thought of X. The normal reply was “Yes six weeks ago”. On Wednesday evening I was given my bit of it when one of them saw me leaving work. The fact that I had sorted out to my satisfaction most of it two weeks ago and that I knew I had lots to throw out but apart from that and packing most things were sorted, just had not occurred to him. The fact being that if things weren’t sorted by now I would be feeling very threatened given the way things were set up originally. I am jolly glad that people lower down the department have done the organising.

Last Friday as I returned from doing some shopping after the Broomhall Breakfast I spotted the police helicopter hovering over the church, this made me nervous, not because I thought there was anything going on in the church but there had been a bit of a to-do with a couple of Breakfasters and talk of sorting it out in the car-park afterwards. Any I went back to the church then walked with Mary home while Sarah I presume deliberately went the other direction. The helicopter left as we set off and there was no trouble.

I don’t think I would recall this but that evening Ship of Fools learnt of the death of Genevieve, now Ship of Fools knows it can mourn a death, and Genevieve was a shipmate who I respected hugely although with little contact. She seemed wise and intelligent. However I am realising that the circumstances of her death (she was shot in church in USA by someone the church had been helping) in close proximity to the incident in the morning just unsettled me.

Otherwise another paper has been published in work and I think another three have or are about to be submitted. I have been busy filling in forms and such. Otherwise I have been dealing with doctoral students in landscape or such with a few foreign language students thrown in for interest. There is more than enough to do.

Today was the baptism of Theo Wheat and also of Annual Church Meeting. The baptism went well and the crowd that came for the Baptism filled the church. The comments afterwards were appreciative and St Andrews members are a disciplined lot who got back to church meeting on time despite the chocolate rich tea biscuits. Sarah is impressive in her management of church meeting and managed to get through the whole ACM procedure and introduce the Church Life Review in under an hour! This is in marked contrast with the meetings I recall as a teenager which could take up a full afternoon as each committee gave their report verbally. The big problem was that as it was a small church everyone went to everything so we really did not need a report on it.

A good end to a busy week

This past week there has been no shortage of news most of it pleasant so don’t worry there is plenty for me to write about.



Monday it was my writing groups bi-annual assessment. It went very well I think. We met in the Elders room. The way we sat meant that Jenny, I and Margaret were all sitting together. The assessor is a published poet so our tutor had chance to show off the group. Jenny is quite a mature poet and indeed has had several poems published, I am not claiming the same for myself but I did a quantum leap with my ability just before Christmas so I am a good person to demonstrate improvement. Finally Margaret is in the final stages of writing a book, it is the one book we all want to read. I don’t suppose it is my normal style, welsh dark gothic in style but the twists and turns are quite incredible. So she was good to show off the standard of prose that is achieved by the group.


Tuesday was just bible study,  They got onto the validity of infant baptism. Now a days I don’t particularly go into the rights and wrongs of it, but I grew up with the arguments.  One guy decided to be adamant of that adult baptism was the only answer, so I said that there was other opinion and that it could be argued as well. I got him to admit that the New Testament did not state categorically either way.


Wednesday was NAG meeting and I presenting what work had been done so far. It went well with people wanting to talk about things. I sensed a real enthusiasm in the group for the route we have mapped out. I presented a shortened version of the form today. What was interesting was that most people queried area even though we had not done a precise area decision. The area was sort of “around the church”, rather than “in your local urban priority area” which is about a mile away. Talking today I sense that we are only starting from scratch because previous projects have not really considered fundraising as part of the project. They seem to have had a contact centre which firstly the church lost control of because the funding came through the probation service and secondly when the funding ran out the probation service just shut it. This seems to be a repeated pattern for their community work. With some the grants needed to make it successful would have been minimal e.g. a regular sum towards the provision of taxi services for elderly people so they could get.


Thursday  was quieter than expected because the youth group found that most of its members were away in Oxford. However I spent the afternoon helping to run a stall for the department on a university Open Day. Even though I was on the grave yard shift, we still had a number of inquiries including one from a mother whose son had lost the stuff he had collected and wanted fresh but did not dare come and ask. He will have to get out of relying on mum to pick up the pieces pretty quickly if he gets to University. Actually for awhile I have noticed that students tend to come in two forms to University. There are those whose behaviour and dress suggests that they are still children while others seem to be full adults. I am not sure what the underlying cause is of this marked discrepancy.


Friday was a full day in work, or would have been if time of the month had not intervened. That said I was up and functional by the afternoon. I needed to sort out the stuff for a course I am doing on Monday and to do that I needed to talk to a couple of people in the building where my office used to be. This was fortunate as there was yet another burst pipe on Glossop Road, they seem to happen every summer just when the weather is at its warmest. This one meant that there was no functional toilets. So the trip over to the other building was chance to go to the loo. Oh in the hot weather I have been making strong mint and green tea and cooling it. By strong I mean very strong. When cold it can either be drunk 50/50 with lemonade or in a mix with wine and tonic water. Both are delicious and cool tasting.


Saturday, hmm was quite a day. I started the fairly early, probably because my body registered that it had a lot on that day. Before 9:00 a.m. my doorbell went and a postman announced that he had a parcel for me. This surprised me, as normally I have some clue when I am due to get a parcel, but there was no hint of anything. However I let him in to the block and he brought a parcel up to my flat. It was addressed to me. What is more it contained a mju tough 8010 camera.. I certainly was not expecting that! I hunted for documentation and found a letter from   Merrell; only then did I remember that when I had bought a pair of shoes a couple of months back I had filled in details and agreed to go into a draw. It appears I was runner up! I thought that was always something that happened to other people.


However I did not have time to set it up because I was off to “Fun at the Fair” at Herringthorpe. It was an attempt to do something different with a summer fair. Basically combining it with a fun day for families. The weather was superb, perhaps slightly too much breeze towards the end. They had also managed to persuade a Mums and Tots group that use the premises to have a stall. The Brownies and Guides both had stalls and I think the scouts did but that was very token. There was a good mix of church and non-church families just sitting around. Improvements would be things like, making the fund raising fifty-fifty for groups, also developing a range of cheap have a go games, with small prizes such as ping-pong balls into jam jars, or the old fishing game or drop a 5p on a £1 at the bottom of a bucket of water. Rotherham has an odd feel. I am trying to place why the fact that its urban deprivation feels worse than that of Sheffield or Chesterfield. Some of it is easy, the railway station is a dive, for starters; just beside it is a river with a chantry chapel and a historic pub. The sort of place most towns would spend money on developing as fashionable pub. Admittedly Tescos did it no favours with their warehouse of a supermarket being built alongside it but in other places that simply would not have been allowed. The town centre is dominated by the Minister but if you are outside Rotherham you would hardly know it. But these are symptoms rather than causes.


Today it was off to church at Herringthorpe and then church meeting. Pauline put in a reference to “We limit not the Truth of God” by George Rawson. I commented to her that that seemed rather appropriate as today is the 4th July! For those who don’t get the reference the hymn she is quoting is a paraphrase of Pastor John Robinsons address to the Pilgrim fathers when they left Plymouth. At coffee I bough a bar of Traidcraft Organic Dark Chocolate which is seriously yummy. Actually one of the things with being involved in the Needs Assessment Groupis that in giving the report I got response from people I would not otherwise have got, including stories of previous community outreach. After that I came home and slept!


This week is quieter, yes I know that is not going to be exactly difficul., I am teaching tomorrow and am running a brainstorming session for the youth group on Thursday. I hope I can be back to my normal car by then. Then at the weekend I am attending Fleur and Walters Ruby Wedding and then spending the weekend with my parents. I must look up trains for that soon.