Goodbyes and Hellos

Today the Clarendon Team formally bade Linda farewell as she lays down her duties as Team Administrator and moves across to St. Thomas's Church in Salisbury in preparation for her training for ordained ministry.  The Team Eucharist took place at St. Mary's Church, West Dean this morning and I attended.  Sara and the children stayed at home as Tom had his friend Doug over and she cooked them breakfast after his paper round.  We had a family lunch together of roast beef with Doug joining us.  This afternoon we all went to visit our niece Natasha and family who moved into their new home in Hampton Park yesterday.  Unfortunately, the previous owners had left the place in a complete mess and dumped all their rubbish in the garden.  Not a very great welcome to Salisbury.  Having brought some stumps, bats and balls I took the boys onto the Green and we played cricket for a couple of hours - Sara and Marc joining in later.  We played a form of Single Wicket cricket which was enjoyed by all.  Doug was due to be picked up later this afternoon but we were all invited to stay for a BBQ and so Doug stayed on and spent a second night with us.  Now Tom has his new bedroom there is plenty of room for him to have a friend for a sleep over without the need to use the Family Room. Eventually we said our goodbyes and returned to Winterslow.  I shall be taking the eldest lad, Harry, with Tom and me to the Rose Bowl next Sunday and again to St. Mary's Stadium on Tuesday week for the Carling Cup tie against Torquay United - Harry's first ever professional football match.   Back in Winterslow I met Richard in the Lion's Head for a couple of pints to round off quite an emotional day with the goodbyes and welcomes.  Richard and Linda will still be around in the village for a few more years even if they will now be worshipping in Salisbury.

Tom visits the opticians

After yesterday's excursion to Oxfordshire I thought a quiet day at home would be in order.  I was up reasonably early though as I had to take Tom into Salisbury for an eye test at the opticians.  Fortunately for him, he does not need spectacles although his eyes are rather slow at re-focussing from close work which might be the reason for his headaches.  A very low powered pair of reading glasses might help but he has been advised to try and do without but lessen his periods of time at the computer - music to his parents' ears!   Tom and I did a bit of shopping before returning home.  I spent the rest of the morning tidying up the front of the house and storing items back in the garage.  Peter and Ian are coming over from Brighton tomorrow to fix the door back on - it will have to be hinged but at least it will be secure. Tom had his friend Doug over this afternoon and they spent most of the time on Tom's electronic games and laptop.  I had intended to attend the Cathedral Bible Society Evensong this evening but time seemed to rush by and I decided to spend the afternoon doing some gardening - particularly mowing the two inside lawns.  The front of the house looks much better now although we still need to get rid of the skip.

Day in Henley

The weather was a little overcast when I awoke this morning and it had all the prospects of being a dull grey day. As it happened, the rain stayed off and it was quite a warm and humid day.  rSara drove me to Grateley Station this morning to catch a train to Reading where I was to be met by my good friend and legal colleague, Michael, a barrister practising from home.  Today was not meant to be a business outing but a social catching up.  My trains left and arrived on time and I was in Michael's car en route to Henley by 12.15 p.m.  After a brief stop over at his home and a chat to his wife, Denise and son, we walked into Henley by way of an excellent free house pub called the Bird in Hand where we enjoyed a couple of pints of Brakspears bitter.  Unfortunately, it is no longer brewed locally but is still an excellent drink.  We lunched at a really good Tapas Bar/Restaurant called La Bodega where I was tempted by the paella which we shared and which was truly excellent - nearly as good as mine!  We ate in the conservatory with a wonderful view of Henley Parish Church tower through the roof.  It was good to catch up and we have promised each other that we shall do this bi-yearly - Henley in the summer and Salisbury in the winter.  Denise picked us up and drove us back.  We watched some of the Second Test Match on the TV before a taxi whisked me back to Reading.  Sara again picked me up at Grateley and I was home by 7.30 p.m. having had a thoroughly enjoyable day out.

Ice Cold in Alex

First day of the school holidays with both children off.   Sara went into Salisbury this morning to meet with Alex to discuss the design work for the Calendar.  After dealing with some Complex work, Mary and I drove to Amesbury to take some bags of garden waste (mainly the cut up branches of the tree at the front) to the recycling centre and then on to Andover for some shopping and banking.  We enjoyed a frappe together in Caffe Nero and I was able to bank some more more for the Calendar Fund.  Whilst we were out, Tom's new wardrobe and bedside furniture arrived and Sara had already installed this in his room by the time we returned.  I must confess to having a short nap this afternoon as my long day yesterday has caught up on me.  Tonight, James brought around a DVD of Ice Cold in Alex as the first of our season of House Group films.  It is a long time since I've seen it.  A great film telling the story of how an enemy becomes a friend through helping in several crises.  At the end of the film we each had a glass of ice-cold Carlsberg which tasted especially refreshing.  Early night tonight (before midnight) as I have a teleconference at 9 a.m. in the morning and then I'm off to catch a train to Reading to have lunch with my barrister friend in nearby Henley.

Back to St. Mary's in a new strip

I was on the road again this morning at 6.30 a.m. for a further meeting with clients in Surrey which lasted all morning.  I returned to Winterslow at 1.50 p.m. just in time to chair a meeting of the Mission Giving Group at 2 p.m.  The Group met for just over an hour in which time we considered and agreed which charities and organisations we would recommend to the Parochial Church Council to receive a grant or donation from the Church. Fortunately there was much consensus and the task was not unduly difficult.  Tom and I went into Southampton this evening to watch a friendly football match at St. Mary's between Southampton and West Bromwich Albion.  This gave us an opportunity to see two new players in the side - Cork and De Ridder.  Both acquitted themselves well - Cork scoring a goal and De Ridder showing some skill with the ball along the right wing and crossing the ball into the area.  The final score was Saints 2 - 2 Baggies.  Tom and I both bought the latest shirt (see picture) so we are now completely ready for the new season.  The first league game will be against Leeds United at 5.20 p.m. on Saturday 6th August.  This game will be televised.  Still waiting for our Carling Cup tickets to arrive.

Breakfast in Rochester

Up early this morning after a good night's rest at the Premier Inn in Rochester.  Richard and I enjoyed a full English breakfast before setting off back for Wiltshire.  We had an excellent return journey arriving back in Winterslow at around 11.30 a.m.  I did some work for Complex this afternoon and mowed the front bank.  Tonight Sara went off with 21 other Winterlsow Calendar Girls to see the stage show again at the Bournemouth International Centre.  The TVs are now working in the children's bedrooms so Tom now spends his time in his new bedroom leaving Mary to watch her American TV on the satellite channels downstairs.  I have another very busy day tomorrow in Surrey with clients and then a church meeting in the afternoon and a visit to St. Mary's Stadium tomorrow night for the Saints friendly against West Bromwich Albion.

Rochester

Another fully committed day today.  I spent the morning on Complex work and phoned Mum for our weekly chat.  She is still suffering from aches and pains but the better weather is making it a bit more bearable.  We talked about my late friend and Mayor of Louth, David Kaye, whose funeral is tomorrow.  Unfortunately my commitments down here make it impossible for me to attend.  I am just so pleased that I was able to see him and spend some time with him whilst he was alive and enjoyed working with him to put together his last book.  I very kindly gave me a model of a Wolverhampton trolleybus as a keepsake which I have here in the study and which I shall treasure.  At lunchtime today we met up with the children's godparents and our bridesmaid who is over from Canada with her new boyfriends.  We spent an enjoyable couple of hours at the Pizza Hut in Amesbury before Richard arrived to take me off to where he and I were to meet with the Rev. Rob Ryan who runs a Pub Theology Group in a Wetherspoon's pub in the High Street there.  We found that our hotel was on the west side of the River Medway and about a 2-mile walk into the city centre (actually after some seven hundred and fifty years or so of being a city, Rochester lost its status as a result of a failure by the local council to secure it during the last local government re-organisation when Rochester-on-Medway merged with Gillingham).  Richard and I decided that as we had plenty of time, we would walk into Rochester town centre over the Medway Bridge.  Stopping at Morrisons for some contact lens solution, we took about an hour to get to the High Street where we had a cup of tea al fesco.  We entered the Golden Lion pub at 6.45 p.m. and were delightfully surprised to find that a pint of Adnam's beer (brewed in Bury St. Edmunds) was only £2.30 (a £1 cheaper than back home in the village).  We met Rob and three of his regular pub theologians as well as a lady who, like us, was researching the idea of pub theology for a dissertation for a degree in theology from the University of Kent. We spent about two and a half hours chatting about many subjects and getting a good feel for how and why pub theology is working in Rochester.  We will need to make quite a few adaptions for it to work in Winterslow.  We visited an excellent Indian restaurant in the High Street which Sara and I had sampled before and whose reputation was confirmed by our theologians - "Two Cities" - where we had a balti each.  After the beer and the Indian food we decided that instead of getting a taxi we would walk back the 2 miles to the hotel arriving at around 12.30 a.m.  A good night's sleep too!