Romance

St. Valentine's Day today and I woke up on a mattress in Peter's lounge - not a romantic morning with my wife!  Never mind, it was made up for by a trip to Wheelies in Portslade for a traditional slap up English breakfast - the "Mini".  Peter and I parted after the breakfast and I drove back to Winterslow, stopping briefly at Rustington to bank a cheque.  I also stopped at garden centre on the A36 between Ower and Salisbury and bought Sara a red rose bush called "Romance" for her rose garden - this instead of the traditional yet overpriced bunch of red roses.  Hopefully, if she doesn't kill it, the bush will bear more red roses than just a dozen.  Tonight I cooked lobster as a romantic dinner for two with champagne (pink cava actually) and we watched the film Mama Mia which I didn't particularly enjoy - although I did enjoy the music.  We did enjoy a nice warm log fire in the lounge tonight too! 

A good evening in Brighton

Off to Brighton today to attend Brighton & Hove Civic Lodge's meeting.  I left after lunch arriving at Peter's in Hove at around 3,30 p.m.  He has a full house at the moment so it meant that I would have to sleep on a mattress in the lounge tonight.  The meeting tonight went very well.  I opened and closed the lodge and entrusted the candidate who was being raised to the Third Degree.  The ceremony was conducted excellently by Peter and the Traditional History, the second part of the ceremony, was conducted by the Assistant Provincial Grand Master, Tony Davies, who had also attended my lecture on the Titanic at Hastings a few weeks ago. Tony also presented a certificate to that brother who was raised at our December meeting. I have promised to provide personal copies of the "Sacred Law" (i.e. the Holy Bible) to each of the two candidates who have been raised during the year of my mastership. We had an excellent Festive Board afterwards - soup, beef casserole and trifle.  Peter and I travelled to and from the lodge on the bus.  Tonight we had our usual in depth natter over a cup of tea before he retired to bed and me to the mattress and sleeping bag.  Sweet dreams!

A working Sunday

An early start this morning in order to be over to West Grimstead Parish Church where I was delivering the sermon at the 9.30 a.m. BCP Parish Eucharist with Nils, the Rectory, leading the service.  Knowing that the congregation don't like long sermons I restricted this morning's to around eight minutes on the topic of not leaving God behind in church but taking Him with you wherever you go in life.  The sermon seemed to work well and a number of parishioners said that they found it thought-provoking and would take it away with them to reflect upon.  I really can't ask any more.  I had three members of my support group in the congregation with me, Richard, Zoe and Mandy (Mandy having arrived back from Barbados that morning!) and I gave Mandy a lift back to Pitton where I joined her and Stuart for coffee.  We then went across the road to Pitton Church where Sophie was leading Morning Worship with a speaker from the Kunde Project (missionary worker/doctor in Tibet and China) who spoke eloquently on the work being done principally in China and spoke of the situation in Tibet.  A fascinating talk and I was delighted to have an opportunity to have a chat to her afterwards.  I cooked Sunday lunch today - roast lamb - which the children loved.  It is now a regular thing for me to cook Sunday lunch.  The kids love Dad cooking and it gives Sara a break.  Sunday has now very much become a working day for me.  The downside is that going away for weekends is much more difficult.  Weekends seem much busier than weekdays.  Tonight, Richard, David, James and I took part in the Lion's Head Quiz as "Last of the Summer Wine" embarrassingly winning again with a 19 points lead over the next closest team - Klynn's.  They must really hate us.  More wine for the collection/next Sunday's lunch!

Saints back to winning ways again

Tom's football match was postponed this morning because of a frozen pitch and so he went into Salisbury with Sara whilst I stayed at home to polish up my sermon for tomorrow morning.  The weather was bitterly cold but Southampton's game against Burnley was to go ahead despite several league matches being postponed because of frozen pitches including West Ham's.  A win by Southampton today  would bring them only one point behind West Ham in the promotion race. Tom decided that he didn't want to go to Southampton this afternoon following his bitterly cold experience on Tuesday night in the FA Cup tie against Millwall - freezing cold weather and lukewarm football from Saints.  He preferred to stay at home and use his new camera to make videos of him and Mary plying beer pong (with water, not beer, in the cups!).  He missed a truly great game of football as a result.  Saints were magnificent beating a poor Burnley team 2-0 (both goals coming in the first half).  It seemed strange attending a football match at St. Mary's Stadium without Tom but I am never on my own when I go now as we have so many fan friends there.  Tonight Southampton are only one point behind the leaders, West Ham, and five clear points above the play-off zone.  However, teams below (and West Ham) do have a game in hand.  Southampton's game at Upton Park against West Ham on Tuesday will be vital and an opportunity to go top again.

Another Winterslow winter has arrived

Woke up to heavy small this morning - the village looking really beautiful.  Sara managed to get her car out of the drive but my Mercedes seemed to have difficulty and it wasn't until after there had been a thaw, later in the morning, that I managed to get my car up onto the road.  Sara and I walked over the Truffles Coffee Shop to draw the raffle for the Valentine Hamper which was won by an 83 year old gentleman in the village.  Another £300 was raised for the Breast Care Fund.   Sara worked at the Lord Nelson at lunch time and I drove into Salisbury to bank the Calendar money and to get my wheel replaced.  Unfortunately, it looks as though the offside tyrpe is now leaking.  I will have to keep and eye on it.  I have taken the old tyre which I'll keep as a replacement for emergencies instead of the slave tryre which came with the car.  At present, it seems to have sealed itself!  This afternoon, I made a fire and after taking and picking up Mary for her youth club up at Barry's Fields, Sara and I spent a fairly lazy night in front of the TV watching a travelogue on Istanbul where we hope to holiday this year.

Sermon and Snow

A busy morning in the study working on my sermon for Sunday.  I had a meeting with Nils at the Rectory at 2 p.m. this afternoon and needed to get something written down on paper to discuss with him.  The general outline of my sermon I had worked on in my head over the last few days but with the sudden death of my laptop, I needed to work swiftly on something on my netbook.  My meeting with Nils went quite swiftly - less than an hour today - and he seemed pleased with my proposed sermon other than a couple of suggested amendments.  I will look at it again on Saturday morning and make any changes after it has had a chance to "pickle" as I call it.  This afternoon I spent a few hours getting my new laptop up and running.  II haven't lost too many things except for Complex accounts which may take some time to replace.  fortunatley last year's accounts are in tact which means I can prepare the books to go to the company's accountants for last years accounts.  Tonight we had a rather light House Group where we discussed "If" - a type of scruples game where we looked at a number of issues and how we might respond.  As the group broke up the snow started falling heavily and so the group dispersed quite quickly to get home - no lingerers for the usual glass of wine.  I expect we'll wakr up tomorrow to a heavy snowfall.

Farewell to a Gentleman (Sid Robinson)

Up early again this morning to drive over to Newport, South Wales, to attend the funeral of 97-year old Sid Robinson, the former Chairman of the Friends of the Newport Transporter Bridge and local historian and author.  I had met Sid during my time as the editor of the FONTB journal, The Vision" and you couldn't wish to meet a kinder gentleman - yes he was indeed a gentleman.  He had a memory the size of the biggest computer and could remember details in the life of Cardiff, Newport and the Severn Estuary going back decades.  Right up until the time of his illness, he was as sprightly as ever and was still going "over the top" of the Newport Transporter Bridge.  I met with other FONTB committee members at the bridge and we saw Sid take his last trip across the Usk on the bridge.  Then up to a very cold committal service at Christchurch Cemetery near the Roman settlement of Caerleon.  Following his interment, I drove to Penarth for a memorial service and wake at the Salvation Army Citadel presided over by Captain Steve Mayo of the Penarth Salvation Army.  An excellent service in warm surroundings with a good buffet wake afterwards.  It was good to see some old familiar faces but sad that it was in such circumstances.  Sid never had a spare moment and I am sure that it was his constant interest and movement that kept him going almost until his 100th year.  I returned home via Cardiff and Newport again but on my return home my laptop failed to boot up properly and PC World advised me that my hard drive seems to have failed.  I have bought a new laptop and, fortunately most of my study material has been saved on an external hard drive, but I have have lost some of my Complex accounts which I'll need to recover somehow.