Masonic Meeting in Calne. Will it never stop raining?

Yet more rain - fetes, sporting events, garden parties - all seem to be cancelled.  I was up early this morning and took Tom into work (paper round) before driving up to the north of the county to attend a masonic meeting at Calne to discuss the 3Rs initiative  -recruitment, retention and refreshment - although not necessarily in  that order - I always forget which order they are!.  I met Lee, our newest member there and was also surprised that it wasn't raining "up north".  A very interesting meeting with a number of lodges describing their recipes for successful retention and recruitment. Our lodge, Sarum, has tried most of these but still suffers - probably because of its demographics - mainly elderly masons who live away from Salisbury. I gave a short presentation on our own experience.  The meeting was followed by a buffet lunch and I then returned home.  The rain returned with a vengeance once I reached Devizes (I seem to be driving through that town at least once a week at the moment).  I was hurrying back to attend Morning Star's Garden Party where I was due to carve the pig at their hog roast.  Unfortunately it was - yes you've guessed it - cancelled.  The British Grand Prix was also affected today but the Wimbledon Women's Final went ahead with Serena Williams picking up her fifth title.  Still feeling really grotty at the moment.  It was good to find that a Freemason colleague of mine reads this blog and for those of you who have been following my ministerial training I have now added a link on this page to the blog which contains all my sermons delivered since I started preaching in January (http://pulpitmichael.blogsopt.com).  It's 10 p.m. as I write this and I think I'll have an early night. I have no church duties tomorrow but hope to get to see the Hampshire v. Essex T20 game tomorrow afternoon and then join my "Last of the Summer Wine" team in the pub quiz. 

Murray through to Wimbledon finals

The rain continues to fall - how absolutely awful.  I really cannot recall such a long period of continuous rain ever before in my lifetime.  Coupled with my severe cold I felt really miserable this morning.  Normally during summer, I would get extra exercise by cycling, playing tennis or playing golf but the weather just hasn't been conducive to any of these activities.  I therefore, and unusually, stayed in bed this morning until about 10.30 a.m..  Normally I would have attended the Ambassadors' Business Breakfast Meeting this morning but I really felt unwell and had no appetite.  I still had to deal with some paperwork and phone calls connected with next week's tribunal but other than that I had little energy for much at all.  The raining just continued to fall.  This evening, feeling a little better, Richard and I went to the Ageas bowl to watch Hampshire take on mighty Sussex in the T20.  Mighty Sussex indeed.  On arrival at The Bowl, we were greeted with blue skies and no rain, having left it behind in Wiltshire. Because of their far superior batting, Sussex put on an amazing 203 runs for the loss of 5 wickets by the eighteenth over when the rain started to pour down again.  Sussex were awesome with Matt Prior (England's wicketkeeper) hitting sixes and fours to make 81 runs off only 37 balls.  Hampshire were heading for a defeat as we couldn't see how they could match Sussex's run rate without taking risks and losing wickets.  We were not to find out as the game was abandoned resulting in Sussex having to share the points with Hampshire - one each.  This means that Hampshire are now almost certain to gain a quarter-final place - albeit an away fixture.  Another sporting triumph this evening, and a very historic one was Andy Murray's triumph at Wimbledon  being the first British tennis player to reach the finals since 1938!  There was great excitement in the Hampshire Members' Lounge as the semi-final victory was seen on the large TV screen.  Looking forward to an exciting Sunday final.

Bundles!

Felt really unwell this morning - I am definitely suffering from my wet day in Southampton on Tuesday.  I found it really hard to get out of bed and so decided to do some work from my bed using my BlackBerry which enabled me to deal with emails, texts and phone calls. I was being intensely optimistic if I thought that this would work!  After receiving a phone call from our counsel, I felt compelled to ring our clients in Surrey and arrange to go up to see them to organise the tribunal bundles.  I left at 11.30 a.m. and was up with them at 1.00 p.m. - totally unexpected and unscheduled.  However, I am pleased I did and in the course of the next four hours or so I was able to get the bundles together in a reasonable shape for printing.  It also gave me an opportunity of reviewing the paperwork again and familiarising myself with the finer points of the case.  I returned home via the A3 and the Hindhead Tunnel - what a marvellous piece of engineering that is - a mile and a quarter long drilled through the Surrey countryside.  I was back in time to lead House Group although by now I could hardly speak - my voice was going, i was coughing and spluttering and I am fully blocked up with cold with a pounding headache.  We managed to have a good evening all the same with some interesting discussions on the state of the church and spirituality generally in the west.  We ended the evening by watching a couple of episodes of "Rev" to emphasise the point.  I found it hard to sleep tonight and watched some T20 Cricket on the TV.

Last lick of misson module

4th July - USA Independence Day - midsummer!  Another miserable wet day again today.  Feeling rather poorly today - probably as a result of getting thoroughly drenched in Southampton yesterday.  No plans at all today other than some Complex work and certainly no appointments.  I had intended to go to Mid-Week Eucharist at St. John's but had to spend the morning working on the tribunal case and so couldn't attend.  I also received another resignation letter from a member of Sarum Lodge which brings our membership down to 22.  The viability of the lodge must now be in serious question.  This evening I attended the penultimate tutorial on "Mission in God's World".  For me, this will be the last tutorial on this subject as next week I shall be in Croydon on the employment tribunal.  Sara made a wonderful chorizo and tomato salad this evening - a Jamie Oliver recipe, which was absolutely delicious. I have also booked our trip to Auschwitz.  We will be joining a small group of about 12 in a mini-bus.  This will give us longer to look around than the organised coach trips. 

Nostaglia in Southampton

Awoke to another miserable day today - raining yet again!  One of those mornings when you really don't want to get up.  Eventually persuaded myself that work needed to be done and so went downstairs and cooked myself a breakfast of sausages with brown sauce - lovely.  Part of my protein diet! Sara and I were both in all morning and I spent on paperwork and emails.  Today marked two great anniversaries in shipping history - the 60th anniversary of the maiden voyage of the US liner, SS United States and the 175th anniversary of the founding of the P&O Line.  I marked the former by flying the Stars and Stripes (confusing some people into thinking that I had hoisted the flag for Independence Day one day early!  The latter I marked by deciding to go down to Southampton to witness the sailing of all seven current P&O cruise liners which had come into their home part together this morning.  They were due to sail at 6 p.m. in convoy led by a Trinity House vessel with the Princess Royal on board followed by HMS Dragon - one of the latest Type-42 Destroyers. Before going down to town Pier to watch this procession, I went to St. Mary's to get Tom's and my shirt personalised with our initials and Premier League badge (so nice to have that back on our kit again reminding us of those great 27 years in the top flight).  I had intended to get these done at West Quay but was told that they could only be done at St. Mary's.  This meant a long walk to St. Mary's in the pouring rain and a long queue to get them done.  I also bought tickets for the Memorial games on Saturday 14th July (which unfortunately will clash with the Parish Fete).  I trudged to Town Pier in the pouring rain and joined thousands of others to witness the departure of the seven liners - Adonia, Ventura, Arcadia, Aurora, Oriana, Azura and Oceana.  By the end of it I was soaked to the skin, shivering with intense cold and my camera stopped working because of the rain which had penetrated it.  Fortunately, it was working again by the time I got home.  The bad weather prevented the Red Arrows from performing and whilst we could hear the fireworks we certainly couldn't see them.  The highlight for me was seeing the three tall funnelled ships - Oriana, Aurora and Arcadia all together, one behind the other in the Western Docks.  It was like the old Southampton when the funnels of liners dominated the landscape/seascape.  Although I felt, physically, very miserable, I did feel nostalgic not only for seeing the ships but walking along the same bits of Southampton as on my first date with Sara.  It brought back memories of the greatest day of my life - one which changed my life and my world forever.  a day I never will regret.

Another rainy day - Where is summer?

I can't believe that this is July.  The weather, once more, is atrocious - cold and wet.  Certainly not the weather for long walks or cycling.  I spent much of the morning working in the study on my big legal case; had a light lunch of oxtail soup with Sara - who attempted spicy Mexican soup following her visit to the dentist this morning - and a visit from Sophie this afternoon.  I drove into Andover during mid-afternoon to bank some cheques and do some shopping at Iceland.  This evening we visited Mary's new secondary school where she will be going in September - St. Edmunds.  Very impressed with it.  I think this will be a good character building place and quite different for her as it is an all-girls school.  I was impressed we we visited it before choices were made and I remain positive that it is somewhere where Mary will have an opportunity to develop well.  Wrote up my outstanding blogs this evening also and then a relatively early night - 11 p.m.  A red font night! A fairly mundane day today though not helped by the weather which simply makes you want to stay in and do as little as possible.

New Saints Shirt has arrived (Liverpool FC?)

Having missed being given Communion by Andrew yesterday (he had given it on the opposite of the cathedral to where I had been and I had missed the service at Farley through being at the cricket in Southampton) I decided to go to the 8 a.m. Early morning Eucharist at St. John's where Andrew was to celebrate the Eucahrist.  I therefore got up early and went along the road to St. John's to find that Nils was taking the service and had given Andrew the morning off after all yesterday's excitement and emotion.  Sara took my place as sidesman at All Saints and I spent the morning working on the service I am to take this evening at Whiteparish. Tom and I ventured into Southampton this morning to buy our new Southampton Premier League shirts.  We parked the car in Brighton Road and walked along The Avenue and London Road to West Quay Shopping Centre to get our shirts from the Southampton FC shop.  Today there was a cycling fest going on with literally hundreds (if not thousands) or visibility tabard clad cyclists riding in every which way you could imagine and we needed to dodge them as we walked along.  Arriving at the Saint's shop we found and enormous queue stretching from the shop outside the shopping centre.  We were advised that there was a 2-hour wait.  Having come this far we decided to queue although I did start to worry that I would not be back in time to take tonight's service at Whiteparish. We started queuing at 1.20 p.m. and finally got served at 3.10 p.m. As soon as we had chosen our shirts we rushed back to the car, dodging the ubiquitous yellow clad cyclists who just seemed to be going round and round to annoy us or knock us down, and back to the car and back to Winterslow. Sara, bless her, had prinited off my order of service, sermon and intercessions and ironed my short ready for tonight.  In the end, I was back home with an hour to spare.  Not a big congregation tonight - only 10 of us with my support group missing. Jane D kindly acted as mentor and will give me a full report.  Seemed to go down okay.  I preached on Paul's message to obey authority (government) and contrasted this with the Holocaust and the cry of "I was only obeying orders".  A difficult piece of scripture (Romans 13:1-10).  Hopefully it provoked some reflection.  After a quick, but really good stir fry meal of pork and noodles tonight, I went down to the Lion's Head for a couple of pints with Klynn and watched Spain devastate Italy on the football pitch in the Euro 2012 Final (4-0). I dread to think what the score would have been if it had been a Spain v. England Final!