Category: Blog Entry

Another Thought for the Day this morning – frustratingly, as sometimes happens, the item before fitted exactly but I couldn’t invent a link on the spur of the moment.  It should have been about Imelda Marcos and the shoes.

Meanwhile, I note with some concern that I am becoming mainstream.  I watched Gordon Brown in Belfast yesterday getting in and out of an armoured Range Rover – so ‘last year’, don’t you think.   But the humble bike has been rehabilitated from the political oblivion to which it was consigned by Norman ‘on your bike’ Tebbitt.  Today’s aspiring politician – like Boris and David Cameron – is always interviewed with his bicycle.  It’s the new sandals – like Rowan Williams always wearing a black shirt.  I think I may get my Chaplain to wheel my Brompton behind me in procession.

You may also have noticed that today marks the 90th anniversary of the Royal Family’s change of surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor or Mountbatten-Windsor.  I’m always interested in how things change or don’t change.  Isn’t it extraordinary that an institution as firmly ‘woven in’ as monarchy could just quietly make such a fundamental change?  They may of course have simply been following the lead of the family of my paternal grandmother who changed their name in the same year from Bruichmann to Brookman.  If you wonder where my ‘clip board’ tendencies come from, look no further.  It does lead me to ponder whether a slight ecossification of my own might be in order – the still-debated sign at the end of the road might point to McBlogstead?

It will be interesting to see how the Velib experiment in Paris works out. 20000 bicycles will be available all over Paris for people to ride – mainly on short journeys. That gets over some of the issues which prevent people from cycling – but not the scary matter of dealing with Paris traffic. Apparently only 150000 people in Paris actually own a bicycle – yet France is bike-mad and when you cycle in France you join a sort of club of signs, nods and gutteral and incomprehensible cyclists’ greetings.

I was reminded of the velosophique stuff by Fr Oliver Crilly’s Lent Book, ‘Is it about a Bicycle?’ He suggested that the spiritual magic of cycling is the combination of solitariness and locomotion. Further report from the saddle of Bamm Bamm’s mountain bike follows shortly.

In the course of an unstressed Saturday in which I polished the faithful Passat [now at 147000 miles], I found myself reading the surprising information that it is Librarians who experience the highest levels of work-related stress – stress being related to the amount of control one has over one’s work and various other factors. Clergy, of course, are privileged in that way – having considerable freedom to shape their own working lives. But stress is a sort of preoccupation among clergy – maybe we feel that we shouldn’t experience it because we should be ‘taking it to the Lord in prayer’. I still believe in the Rectory system – but in my personal experience the greatest source of personal and family stress in ministry is rooted in the fact that you live in a house which you don’t own or control. There’s no magic in owning a house – but living in a tied house makes you very vulnerable. And while I am at it, other sources of stress are dealing with multiple, conflicting [and undeclared] expectations – and the lack of clear boundaries between work and not-work.

And finally, in the course of my idle researches, I was reminded of the issue of bullying
People can say what they want and you can’t respond in kind. But if you can’t deal with it, it grows and grows.

Fascinating cousins that Alison has.  John came over from Dublin yesterday to check out a horse.  I learnt all sorts of wonderful things about how to measure equine potential – horse assessment seemed to me about as difficult as the task of vocational discernment.  So maybe we could set up a multi-disciplinary session with our DDO’s.  And I’ve just been watching David singing in the Philharmonia Chorus in Beethoven’s 9th at the Proms – 4th row down and 19 across in the tenors in case you were asking.  Became fascinated by that too – wonderful people singing their hearts out in the Ode to Joy – all dressed simply in black which somehow made you more aware of characterful and lived-in faces.  And no music in their hands.  It makes a huge difference.  I’m a great believer in preaching without the script.  I write it and I bring it with me and sometimes I even preach it.

After watching the Sea Eagle remain obstinately in its tree … it was back to the Diocesan Review meetings this evening.  In a way, it’s the same question – about whether or how the bird will fly.  Every time I have been involved in these processes, it has come down to the same tension.  Too organised, managerial, controlled and controlling.  Or too spiritual, wistful, relational.  The answer lies, of course, in a Goldilocks ‘just right’ which isn’t just the mid point between the two positions but which is in some measure a synthesis.

It was wet on Mull – not just an Irish ‘soft day’ but properly sodden.  But apart from that it was great.  We set out to do a cliff walk but it was so wet that we ended up on the ferry to Iona.  Iona in the rain is a damp place rather than a thin place.  We sat in the pub near the pier and nebbed as one of our American friends rang home: ‘I’m in the Inner Orkneys …’

Best was the wildlife tour led by David.  What he does looked difficult to me.  Drive a minibus all day on fairly poor, single-track roads, be friendly and knowledgeable, keep the patter going, provide quality food constantly and, above all, find the wildlife that the customers have paid to see and let them look at it through the big telescope.  And he did it well. We started with a family of otters – looked like any other lump of seaweed but it was a mother and two cubs.  Amazing in close-up.  Then there was the Peregrine Falcon sitting on a lonely crag and a constant supply of local sea birds.  Then it became a struggle to find the Sea Eagles and the Golden Eagles as the weather deteriorated.  Eventually, as he drove down a steep and twisty hill, David pointed to a tree close to the top of a hill about half a mile away.  And in the tree was a young Sea Eagle.  I’d love to have seen it fly …  but maybe next time.  And, in a strange way, the best of it was that you couldn’t manage to photograph any of it – you just had to see it, savour it and take the memory of it away.

Meanwhile, Poppy really enjoyed her holiday at Blogstead Emeritus.  So kind, so attentive .. I think she feels we take her for granted.

We’re continuing the Visit Scotland trek with a brief visit to Mull – at least the weather is picking up.  Poppy is visiting Blogstead Emeritus where she finds the facilities and attention are of a standard which equals or maybe surpasses what is on offer here.  Back Wednesday.

Another day working for Visit Scotland – beginning with a quick visit to Auchterarder for a little light retail therapy with a restorative coffee and a rubarb pie in a delightful deli.

Time pressing – so on to Falkland to climb the hill at East Lomond.  The views are amazing – all the way to the Firth of Forth.  As we approached, we wondered at the aerobatics of the glider pilots .. and, as we got closer, began to ponder the ‘is that a big plane far away or a small one nearer’ question. Sure enough, a peep over the summit of the hill revealed a nest of model plane enthusiasts with radio controllers.  So we had a chat to them – about glider racing at 150 miles an hour and how they can gain speed by circulating within a vortex of air.  Enthusiasts about anything are always fascinating.  And on the descent we met one of my regular blog-readers climbing up – could any day hold more?

So we ended a restful day with a really remarkable concert at Strathgarry, near Blair Atholl, where Henrietta, Lavinia and Bumble run a music festival, presiding over a feast of both music and food.

And maybe the weather is starting to improve?

I mourn the death of George Melly. For some reason, I read ‘Owning Up’ – his autobiography of his early years on the road – with the Mulligan band – long before the days of John Chilton’s Feetwarmers. In a world of caution and carefulness – much of it my own – I found his overwhelming exuberance very attractive. I must go back and read that other book about his jazz and his sexuality, ‘Rum, Bum And Concertina’

It is, of course, appropriate that he should die as the smoking ban arrives in England. The Grauniad today said that it is ‘comforting that one of the last great celebrity smokers should die in the saddle.’ And, however much I detest smoking, I can cope with that. One could ask all sorts of elegant questions about the final statement of the same article that, ‘He believed that what he did with his life was much more important than how long it was. He believed in enjoying himself and doing what he wanted, whatever the consequences.’ Clearly the opposite of self-sacrificing Christ-likeness. And yet I suspect that the exuberance was an expression both of life seized with both hands and of giving of his gifts and talents. The world will be the poorer without him.

By the way, the Scottish holiday retreated to the Elgar Pomp and Circumstance world of Glamis Castle today under pressure of the weather. The man at the gate made an executive decision to give us the Senior Citizens’ rate. ’nuff said.

Well – we managed 46 miles today – Ian on the Brompton and me on Bamm Bamm’s mountain bike.  We cheated a bit by joining the N7 [on the National Cycle Route] at the top of Glen Ogle above Killin.  The Brompton for some reason managed five punctures during the day.  So it was Killin, then the switch-back along the southern shore of Loch Tay to Kenmore.  Then towards Pitlochry until Logerait where we turned south on the N77 towards Dunkeld.  It’s surprising that the N7 by-passes Aberfeldy – but then one of the more remarkable stragetic decisions made by our diocese in the past was that we would close and sell our church there.  So I shouldn’t be surprised.

We met lots of people from all over the place spending their holidays riding the length of the N7 from Inverness to Carlisle.  It was great – although, as the psalmist might say, my down-sitting and my uprising leave something to be desired at present.