On a winters evening

I got to Edinburgh on time and headed Northwards along the Dundass Road, towards the B&B. It is not far, it was cold and the lights in Central Edinburgh  were bright. These days like many city centres they have fairgrounds running in the centre of town. Princess Street was shut due to work on the trams but this just meant the fair had spilt out onto the road. The B&B was comfy, I had opted for a room without a bathroom but was slightly put out to discover that the bathroom was on another floor. The room however met my standards of comfortable. That is they had a table/desk in the room. So many rooms have nowhere you can really write a letter or read in comfort.


On the evening I met friends off Ship of Fools.We met up at Ma Bells, as I was walking up there I noticed that there seemed to be snow on the ground. This was confirmed by ship of fools friends I met at The Bow Bar  which was a small bar serving a huge range of whisky, although most of the time we drank ginger beer. We then went on to look for food, unfortunately at this point we got fooled by a restaurant that still had out its early evening menu and when we got in the price were about double what we were expecting. So we ordered starters and sides and I really don’t know how I could have eaten more than what I got.Talk was varied, including one or two St Andrews University acquaintances and how they were doing, talk of J.K Rowlings prior to Harry Potter, that Anglican hegemony on Ship of Fools and so on. One of the people there was something like a Doctor of Epidemiology only because she could not be a Doctor of what she wanted to be, Doctor of Pain, her speciality is pain management. Of the five of us three were involved in the conference the next day. Another was a househusband waiting to be a full time carer, his wife’s career in Mechanical Engineering had took off in a way that his in English literature/philosophy hadn’t.


My father was right in part about New College being cold. That was the heat was very unevenly spread. On the Tuesday I thought the whole college was cold but from Wednesday lunch time on I ended up in too warm rooms. The previous evening it had been mentioned that it was part of J.K Rowlings inspiration for Hogwarts. Having been inside it I could say that it was not just the impressive front. It does have a splendid dining area and ancient halls as well, but the big thing was just how complex the internal layout was. It was clearly a building that had been built and rebuilt over the years. Some of the seminar rooms had windows for the lower half of the room! Flights of stairs seemed to go off at random and I am not at all sure how New College would have got on with standard University room numbering. For those unused to it the numbering usually consists of two numbers, the first being the floor and the second the room with either 0 or G being used for ground. So my office at work is something like 2.17 (second floor, room 17) and my supervisors at Birmingham is something like 8.21, eighth floor, room 21.

Well there were enough URCs to have URC seminar as that is what seemed to be where I did my paper. I suspect that ironically, my cafe paper, which is on ethnography of worship would have had a higher attendance. I also suspect that being put in a seminar labelled Reformed theology put people off. I later sat through a paper of Schleiermacher and his eucharistic theology. The thing is that I was reminded just how easy it is for me to inhabit his thinking without having done major reading, I know the corrolaries and the ramification before the speaker stated them. It is something I nearly always can do when dealing with Reformed thinkers but not when dealing with theologians in other traditions. That does not mean I have to agree with the Reformed thinkers, it just means I know where they are coming from. I have written a more indepth blog about my assessment of the conference on my thesis blog


Travelling back was interesting. I got down to pick up my case from left luggage (the choice of hiking it up the hill to New College and then through the stair filled corridors, or paying £7 for left luggage at Waverley, meant leaving it at Waverley won) just in time to get the last direct train to Sheffield (it leaves just after 6pm). Unfortunately the weather had caused a train ahead of it from Glasgow to fail and it was running about an hour late. The thing is when a train is that late it tends to get later and later, so instead of getting in around 9 p.m., it was after 11 p.m. Fortunately I had booked the next day off work as recovery time. However I did get a really good taxi driver who not only knew where my flat was (a rarity) but got my bag out of the cab.


Thursday and I was back into work, actually not much happening but I managed to get up a short video on how to produce evidence for working, but by the evening my head was aching and I decided that there was possibly a migraine on the way and I better go home and see if an early night would fix it. Unfortunately the next day the dregs stayed with me.  The only thing I actually did was to put a plastic layer over a window that does not shut properly, as this is right by my thesis computer I wanted to stop the draft that came in through the crack and made that place uncomfortable. 

However I managed to go to the Dicksons for evening meal. It was a good time although I was not really hungry. The previous weekend they had been celebrating their golden wedding. This included a couple of meals out and cake and champagne at the church. Unfortunately I then went and forgot to take my medicine so yesterday although I managed to write and get to the station to try and sort tickets I was sort of off colour, and today I have felt fragile but made it to church. The congregation is interesting, there is probably a better spread of ages than when I joined almost twenty years ago, but that is largely due to the loss of people at the older end. The recruitment at the younger end remains much the same. The problem is that it is not high enough to sustain the congregation. However the way I was feeling I just drank coffee and then came home to sleep for a couple of hours and am now feeling much better.

Bradford Shipmeet at the end of a normal week

Right lets see about this weeks happenings. I am beginning to feel that I am settled back into what I need to do. I managed all four days at work this week without a migraine so it seems to have been the post Christmas blip that I have managed to throw off. On Wednesday in work there was an NVivo Users meeting. I am begining to realise I need to be more proactive in taking things to people. A research bid went in and because I had not talked to someone they had not put in the money for software and hardware plus personel to keep it running that they need to really run the software.

Another thing is I am learning that with another member of staff that when I was expecting her to take the initiative she was waiting for me to issue instructions. Bother. I can issue instructions but she really does need to be more instrumental in doing her job (that is organising and running computer courses). I am not pushy but I have been wondering why things have not been happening and it seems to be because I have not been suggesting dates. One of the problems is that she actually knows the demand while I don’t. Oh well I now have one arranged.

Another thing is I have my phone battery sorted. It has been running flat far more than it should have. In the end I needed to do several things. Firstly set up a sync properly, as it was trying and failing to sync. I then turned the frequency of syncing to daily and largely turned syncing off. I also got a larger battery, which means a chunkier phone but the battery now last about three days instead of less than one. I have tested that over the weekend and on Saturday it got a lot of work for me and still did the three days.

Even better news is that I saw the doctor on Friday and I no longer have a prescription for Paroxetine (Seroxat). I am on a really small dose at present 5mg having been tapering off for a long time (I think something like three years). 5 mg is really an irritating amount to be on as you need to chop tablets in half to get that amount. If I do go down after stopping I can go back on but the doctor thinks the present level is almost homeopathic it is so small so I do not expect to. Formally I will stop doing this on Wednesday.

Saturday I went to Bradford for a Ship of Fools Meet, in honour of Erin Etheredge(community editor on the forums who died just before New Year). We met at the National Media Centre and I got to seeing an Imax film for the first time with the film Wild Ocean ). It was spectacular although I came out with a headache. I found that although the initial images lept out at me, after a while my brain seem to process them as on a screen or a fish tank. Then we went onto Omar Khan’s for a meal. It was only a small crowd of us I think six people through out the whole event. I also went tee total for the event and that meant with getting back to Sheffield by about 10pm I was able to be functional today.

I was reading in church today. Normally when there is a version of the bible in the pews I use that one. However the version is the Good News and as part of my preparation I look up other versions and this time even glanced at the Greek. The reading was only 4 verses long 1 Corinthians 1:18-21 but I had at least three grumbles with the way it was translated. The deal breaker for me was the fact that they had changed the subject of the first verse. Not drastically admittedly but in a way that would have for the original readers weakened the force of what Paul was saying. The switch had happened from the fact Christ was crucified to the fact he had died. the others really were personal preferences. However this is of course Paul speaking about the wisdom of God being different from the wisdom of this world. Ironic that I am using learning to ask questions about the passage and find it wanting. However I take comfort from the fact Paul the writer is a trained scribe and not only that uses that knowledge to write this passage when he picks up the verse from Isaiah. In other words to read this passage correctly then it is not a rejection of worldly knowledge but a plea to understand its limitations. However it so happened that although the bible in the pews are Good News none of the readers used it today. The preacher read from the Bible she had with her which was probably the NIV, I read from the ESV and the third reader read from the NRSV because she had the beatitudes and could not stand using “happy” instead of “blessed”.

Reporting back on the festive season

Lets see how I can do for a brief roundup. I left Christmas too late really or the snows just made everything that much more difficult. The fact that for two to three weeks I could not get to Herringthorpe meant that when I could I felt I should go there. This meant going to both the Cristingle and the Carol Service. That at least one week meant two services. The upshot of it was that I called off going to the works party. That did not mean an extra day off work but that I did not have the hassle of trying to organise myself to be on form for it. I am really getting to the stage where I feel that there is little point in my attending although I do still try to go for good form sake. I honestly would prefer to be managing the reception desk for the whole day than at the party.

The next day it was pack up and go to my parents. I aimed to be there about 6pm, but it was nearer to 7pm when I actually arrived. No the journey from Sheffield does not take long but I had so much to do. Not just collecting the car but buying too really big plastic boxes to put stuff in. I was so intent on buying the boxes I did not spot that they were on “buy one get one half price” which was nice. I have now found a place to store them in my flat. Hopefully both of them will only be needed at Christmas and I can get away with only one mid year.

The reason for the late arrival was my inability to get past Chesterfield, this despite having spent two years negotiating the back routes for my PhD. I guess I was cocky and I failed miserably until I just decided to follow the signs from Hathersage and stop being clever. No gritters this year although the car was less powerful than last (it was also smaller which in my opinion is a good thing) and I was not turning down the gears quick enough but there was little other traffic on the road.

The next day was quiet although I made the Christmas Pudding, however I spotted when I started cooking that the quantity of the packs of “150g pack Waitrose Soft Tropical Fruit Medley, roughly chopped” were not what I had bought but 220g pack. That’s odd I thought, then realised the stuff I was dealing with looked almost glace in texture. Brain starts thinking “They are treating this stuff differently to what they used to I really want the other stuff”. So I put in a full bag, as I am pretty sure that you get less genuine fruit per gram, but the fruit had poor flavour. Next year if I repeat the recipe I think I am going to have to buy other soft dried fruit and make the mix for myself.

The day started quietly, Dad decided that church was out as the streets were too icy to walk and car moving was not appropriate. However to get up to Cathy’s we would go in his car. That meant all sorts of fancy maneuvers as Dad would not countenance me parking in the slot of someone who appeared to be away on the day. Instead of which the position I parked in may have caused a neighbour to have difficulty in getting out but appeared to be the only other option.

Cathy had this year decided that Christmas should be lower key and that she was not going to fuss so much. The result was an overall much pleasanter Christmas meal. My MP3 player that has all the Christmas music on it decided to stop working. I don’t know if plugging it into a computer might bring it to life or if I just need to get on with it and buy a new mp3 player and speakers for next year. As usual we ran Irene home.

On the Monday I made a whiskey and ginger cake to this recipe, the thing is that you can either make that a mild ginger recipe by using fairly mild ginger or a strong ginger recipe by using strong ginger. Needless to say as it is me, I made the strong form. I also went shopping around Heatons. Not much was open but the Somerfield at Moor Top has been taken over by Co-op and this seems to have improved it. It was not bad before but the stuff was better displayed and more the range I am interested in. It also was distinctly different from the Tesco Metro just up the road at which I bought nothing.

On the Tuesday I was up to Drummore. The run was straight forward, and I went the south way around Manchester. I think now they have sorted the traffic problems around the Trafford Centre it is probably the better way to go. This time I missed the Old School House for Lunch and therefore had to continue onto Newton Stewart. I decided I might as well see what was open there and found that Cinnamon a local Christian cafe, book shop and grockle outlet, was open and selling home made soup. I’d prefer to shop there for Christian books than the local branch of CLC which is the best Sheffield now has on offer.

The big news from Drummore is the former Ship Inn is now a Thai Restaurant. This is really quite a daring experiment. Posh pub food (also served at the Ship Inn) is about as exotic as Drummore has previously got. The locals seem to be willing to give it a try but we did not over the holiday time.

The rest of the time passed fairly quietly, in part because I had to do a lot of reading for my PhD. I am trying to collate the ideas I have had over the last four and a half years and see if I can find a pattern/ range of themes or such that could be sorted into a thesis. It is not lack of ideas, plenty of them, as those who have read the papers I have written will know but it is actually trying to develop a rope out of all the different strands.

Also while I was there Erin from Ship of Fools died. The first inkling I got of this was actually on 2nd December. Morag had taken the two girls to the Quaker Meeting in Newton Stewart, and they had done Sadako, who tried to fold 1000 paper cranes, as part of her cure for Leukaemia caused by the bombing on Hiroshima. She folded 663 before she died. Folding the cranes became her way of fighting the disease. Cait wanted to hear the story. Now it is a sad story and I knew when she asked me to read it, that I did not want to. Nothing I could put my finger on so I read, and was in tears for the later part of the story. I presumed some displaced grief was being released and thought nothing more of it. The next morning on browsing the Ship of Fools forum I spotted a “Important -Please Read thread in Styx” apparently started by Erin. My initial response was “Drat what an awful time for them to decide to take the ship into dry dock”, but I clicked on it, only to find it was actually posted by her brother Jason as Erin had died on 30th December. From the sound of things it was pretty quick, Erin showing ‘flu like symptoms earlier in the day, before being rushed to hospital and dying on admittance. She was only 39.

Now Erin isn’t someone I would claim as a friend, she is someone I respected highly, but I did not personally interact with her. I am trying to sort that out, because people talk on the Ship of being scared of her. I think I can say that with me it was not so simple. I never felt the need to post things that drew her ire, I rather listened and learned about what was and what was not acceptable on the site. However I don’t think I ever did not post something because I felt it would annoy Erin. I usually did not post something because I felt that either others had said it better or that what I had written was rubbish. However she was deeply connected with the boards. In the early days she helped “save” the boards when under attack from an internet troll who had scuttled other boards. She developed ways of coping with trolls and other storms that effect all internet forum firstly on the fee paying boards and finally on the public boards. These methods largely work, ship-of-fools is neither a lovey-dovey strongly controlled coterie nor a boards continually caught up in cataclysmic wars. Through a range of methods including having ten fairly straight forward rules, having a place to take personal attacks and also a board dedicated to issues that people tend to talk past each other on, she helped create a place where discussion can happen. Some of these are taken up more widely. If a discussion board has clear published rules they often owe quite a bit of what is in them to Ship-of-Fools. Others are hotly debated, the Hell board for containing personal vindictiveness, is effective but many people seem to get confused by it. The instruction to “take it to Hell or shut up” seems to work better than the instruction just to “shut up”. Linguistically the places is rougher, but it is a bit like having something out with someone in front of a school forum where others can comment. It sorts the trolls from the merely inexperienced who want to learn.

Ship of Fools is also a community that knows it grieves well. That is it can handle grief and perform well during times of grief. This goes back to 2002 when Miss Molly died, if you doubt this read this . If you have the time, spend more time in Limbo and read the other threads to Gambit and Kenwritez. However it is a strange time, Erin was bigger than anyone else on the boards. She was present even when she wasn’t in the way people related and it is a complete surprise. I am not sure even yet that everyone knows who should.

I travelled back last Thursday, Mum and Dad were surprised to see me back around 4pm, but if I leave at around 10:00 a.m. then the journey between Stockport and Drummore takes until around 4pm usually. Gritters were out but again clear roads. Then on Friday came back to Sheffield via Fleur and Walters. They were kind enough to provide me with lunch which I appreciated, however Erin’s funeral was at 4pm GMT and although I was not going I hoped to be in the Ship-of-Fools cafe for the time, so I could not stop.

Yesterday was spent sorting things out, then installing software so I could access the work I have done over the holidays on PhD from my main home computer and then Stuart came around to catch up.

Today I attended Herringthorpe and so am back into life in Sheffield. I have a busy day tomorrow and probably won’t go back into work until Wednesday (taking an extra days holiday so I can finish what I need to write for this months supervision).

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.

Two Quieter Weeks

Right lets see what I can recall from the last fortnight. I think I will stick to main events rather than a day by day spiel. Monday 6th July I was down to Birmingham for a supervision. Main article was to review my report to St Andrew's Chesterfield. The report was in depth but is going to need some revision before I give it to them to take into consideration last Sunday's interview. There are still problems with dealing with details. I was puzzled by my supervisors response that the report was for the minister only. Two reasons, I expect elders to be interested in detailed reports and I also know with this minister that he won't read it if it was just for him. In the end it turned out that my supervisor had little idea what role the Elders play in an congregation and the depth of their involvement with the running and decision making on a day to day basis. He eventually grasped that elders were closer to ministry team than to PCC in the Anglican setting! It seems so simply that the minister does not run the Church but the elders meeting did and the minister plays a leading role within that setting. So it looks as if I am going to have to produce a chapter on the Reformed Character of the URC in my thesis otherwise I will find blank questions from my examiners. Travel was smooth except for the journey back when the train was delayed between Birmingham and Derby.

The Tuesday I had a migraine. I think if I hadn't I could have claimed I was cured of migraines as I had just done so much over the weekend and Monday. It was the first for quite some weeks. Yes the absence has really been due to an absense of migraines. Its actually quite tricky balancing things at the moment. I know I am better but I also know that if I go back to previous ways I will get more migraines. Humm.

Nothing much to report on Wednesday but Thursday was the day that St Andrews Chesterfield debated about whether children could take communion. Although many there see it as a continuation of whether confirmed(children who have gone through church membership) children could take communion I think this in many ways both was more recent and much deeper. Up until Easter time this did not arise as the children were in Junior Church during communion. The problem was that this Easter they came in and then the congregation did not know what should happen. Technically they held an open table and were proud of their open table but was it open to children. The deeper thing is to do with the acceptance of certain families into the congregation. These are families who are second generation and the mother was brought up in the church, but went away to college and came back. There are two such families. The mothers are being expected to go through membership classes again. One has done so and one has refused to. The mothers up until recently have not been asked to be elders. It was these families whose children were excluded from communion.

was until Friday then, I had a meeting in my diary which means I am back processing data, rather a lot of data some of it totally new to me. I am going to see what can be done with what we have got but I think at least one lot of data will need to be not produced as simply I do not have the where with all to deal with it.

Friday evening was completely different. I ended up organising a trip to evensong and then on for a curry at Naawab's. This was for Codepoet (as he is known on Ship of Fools) who is training for the Anglican ministry and had a placement at Parsons Cross in Sheffield. Balaam and LRP also from Ship of Fools made it as well. Cathy they live in Huddersfield. The rest of the West Riding shipmates did not make it. I was expecting Nawaab's to be close to full but it was at best half empty. The food was good, price about what you'd normally pay in Sheffield for a meal. Apparently the menu is not as extensive as it is in Bradford but they still went beyond the normal. For a good quality curry Division Street is becoming a place to go. As Aagrah's and Nawaab's have now joined Nirmals. I wonder if any of our out of town curry houses which are often also good will move into town. The choristers at evensong were definitely at the tired point for end of term. There were according to Codepoet glares from the choirmaster to various choristers during the service. One managed I think twice to drop his music. I imagine he at least stood a good chance at missing the end of term party on Sunday!

Saturday was quiet. Sunday I went to the communion service at St Andrews Chesterfield. The children should have taken for the first time. I think it was coincidence. Another family came that week, which meant that there was a third little one who as far as I know had not been to Junior Church at all during the last two years. This was the cousin of one of the little girls who is normally there. The mother who had been one of the leading protagonists in favour of children at communion stepped in and took the two younger girls while there was a communion service. I give her full credit for handling tactfully the situation. Then it was onto the pub for lunch with two members mother and daughter as indicated earlier.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were busy working days. On Wednesday I went around to Stuart's new room as he wanted to show it off. He rents his room from Monica Hanna. It really was only a visit to see his room which is now on the first floor and much better looking than his previous one.

Thursday I took the morning off to do some transcription and then into work on the afternoon hoping I'd have chance to play with the data but Dr Hussein had booked in that morning but otherwise a very ordinary day.

Friday was at Breakfast and then had a Greek class. Then a study day, Saturday a Study day and I took this morning off but am going to the barbecue this evening at St Andrew's Chesterfield that replaces the normal just desserts.