End of an error, as Keith Skipper would say. My page in the EDP is occupied by someone else, and they haven’t even included an explanatory line as promised. So having ignored my retirement, it seems they’re now going to ignore my 11 years of writing a page for them. I shall not be waiting for my obituary with bated breath. Tried to ring the deputy editor, but he’s not there. Nor am I.
Meanwhile life goes on. Life for three days last week was Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk from New Mexico, who visited Norwich to give a two-day course on contemplative Christianity, for which 150 people from all over the country converged on St Luke’s Centre. The event was “put on” by St Augustine’s, the sister church, which has very limited space, so we used the excellent facilities at St Luke’s.
Dot and I were closely involved, because Dot was in charge of all the volunteers. She is pictured in the upstairs kitchen with Howard, hard at work. Providing enough seating, eating, drinking and other facilities for that many people was quite a challenge, especially as some tables and chairs had to be transported in from St Augustine’s Hall. We borrowed a van from Besom. It’s garaged on the Larkman estate in a garage that can only be accessed through a vicarage. So we had to meet someone there, leave our car in the garage (the Larkman estate is not the safest place in Norwich) and drive to St A, where we picked up the furniture, with help from three or four others. We then drove to St Luke’s, unloaded, repeated for extra chairs, and then returned the van to the Larkman and retrieved our car. I quite enjoyed driving the van, but not carrying the furniture, though I think I avoided damaging my back.
That was on Thursday. The whole process had to be repeated on the Saturday, of course, when we had help from Ed and David. In between we did more physical work that we had done for years, setting up the furniture, laying the tables, washing up, carrying crates of crockery, assisting with cooking. Fortunately we had an amazing cook, Suzanne, who produced delicious soup, including a mushroom soup that I actually loved (previously I never liked mushroom soup at all). The team of volunteers worked really well together and formed close friendships. Dot was extremely efficient, of course, and amazingly calm.
On the Thursday, in a state of near exhaustion, we had attended a Eucharist at the Julian shrine led by Richard Rohr. This was extremely moving – there were fewer than a couple of dozen of us. RR had always been an admirer of Julian, and it was clearly a big experience for him. In the evening (after I’d cooked chilli con carne for four, including the stupendous cook – aargh) we went to an RR talk at the Cathedral, which had an audience of about 500. Inspiring stuff, too. It was the only time during the three days we heard him give a complete talk.
The two days ended with a Eucharist which wasn’t on the original programme, which was a bit hair-raising as Dot and I were requisitioned to play music with Liz and Ruth. Did one of my songs, which may be on the official CD – or it may not. The Eucharist was celebrated Iona-style, with a long table down the middle, and each person serving the bread and wine to the person opposite, who then returns the favour. The guy opposite me was a young man from Northern Ireland who has one of those faces that seem almost serenely happy, in a totally good way.
Just as we were coming up to lunch on the first day, Suzanne’s son was rushed into hospital and she received a rather anguished phone call from her mother which resulted in my driving her to hospital and leaving the assistants to serve the soup. If it had happened an hour earlier it would have been extremely difficult, but it worked OK. Her son had to have an infected foot drained, but he was well enough for her to return at the end of the afternoon to prepare for the following day.
After returning the van to the Larkman on Saturday, Dot and I went out for a meal. Prezzo’s was full so we essayed the Nelson, which turned out to be surprisingly good, despite a fair proportion of lads and ladettes in attendance. I had a good steak and Dot had an excellent fish dish, both washed down with a little too much wine. But we made it home. The last four nights, I have slept straight through.
Yesterday was a bit slower, but we managed to get to church, which is just as well, as I was leading the prayers. Rest of the day we took it pretty easy and didn’t move any furniture at all. I did cook a roast dinner, though.
The weather throughout wasn’t too bad. Happily the day of heavy rain was Friday, when we weren’t moving chairs and tables. Today it’s windy, and there have been floods in other parts of the country, with worse forecast.