Well the polar bears can hang on a bit longer.  I managed to go to Edinburgh and to Dunblane on the way home by train with Brompton folding bicycle.  The strangest thing is that you are allowed stop overs on the home leg of the Cheap Day Return.  So thanks to First Scotrail.  The bicycle is to avoid the impossiblity of parking at Perth Station.

I was interested to see that the papers had obviously been reading this blog and continue to indulge in discussion about the worlds most unread books – as I suspected, Ulysses tops the list.  Apparently, 72% of those who bought a copy claim to have read it complete.  The Independent doesn’t believe them and nor do I.  I continue to recommend William Trevor – and am surprised how many people have never heard of him.  Class of his own, I think – particularly the short stories.

And speaking of green issues, we’re off to a St Patrick’s-tide Reception with the Irish Consul in Edinburgh tomorrow night.  Careful!

We’ve just reached the time of year when the rising sun shines through the Tay Bridge as I am going to Dundee at around 6.45. This morning’s drive was enlived by the efforts of a deer [which had presumably escaped from Psalm 42] tried to throw itself under the car as I went round the back of Dunsinnane Hill

BBC Scotland – Thought for the Day – 14th March

‘But how did it get there?’ I ask.  It’s taken me several days of fiddling around to get the screws in the wall into the exact place so that they will match the little holes on the back of the mirror.  Well, it’s there now and I hope it’s still there in the morning.

Meanwhile, after a meeting in the Cathedral today, I went off into a corner for a meeting with one of the clergy.  Only to find that we had been locked in.  But three thumps with the crozier on the door seemed to do the trick.

It’s remarkable how political ideas and themes quite suddenly come of age.  So green issues have moved from the political fringes to mainstream debate between David Cameron and Gordon Brown.  And quite right too.  We’re busy dealing with all the moat issues – energy saving light bulbs and turning off the standby setting on the TV – while feeling helpless about the beam issues like our overall carbon footprint as measured in excessive numbers of flights and of miles driven.  But when you live in a rural area ..

Meanwhile, between us we have booked three flights with Flybe during the last three months.  The score so far is two flights cancelled and one delayed by nearly three hours.  Time to let the train take the strain – but those options are limited between here and Belfast.

To get to Tayport from Blogstead, you hurdle the Sidlaw Hills, cross the Tay Bridge and turn left.  It’s rather a place apart and that’s its charm – you wouldn’t go there unless you were going there so it has that slightly ‘secret’ feel.  We have a small and faithful congregation there – they are remarkable for many things but most of all because they demolished their church hall and built a nice, new, small, well-heated, welcoming, brightly lit and paid-for hall.  In other words, they had faith in their future.  I am for ever suggesting to people they should go and look at it.

This evening we went to hear Bach’s St John Passion in the Concert Hall in Perth.  Unfortunately I can’t give credit where credit is due because they ran out of programmes.  I could tell you who most of the audience were because they seemed to be mainly members of the SEC.  It was a good performance – great evangelist in particular.  But I found my mind going back to the quite outstanding performance last year by Mark Padmore.  When he reached ‘Peter went out and wept bitterly,’ I gripped the arms of my seat because he produced a simply terrifying sound which seemed to contain all the anguish of lost humanity.

And I thought a bit about our worship – and what it takes to create worship which does take you by the throat – which rises above the pedestrian.  Obviously you can’t expect it to do that every Sunday morning.  But just now and again, perhaps?  Seems to me its a combination of passion with an aspiration to rise, literally, above the mundane.  And, as I listened to the music tonight, it seemed to me to be also about creating pools of space and silence, about varying pace, about how what is soft speaks louder than what is merely noisy.  I noticed tonight that I sometimes felt the emotion of the moment in the space that followed it – not at the moment itself.  Strange that.  Let’s not go there.

I am becoming more of a fair weather cyclist – signs of age maybe?  But I’ve been starting to cycle around this wonderful – and flat – part of Scotland again as the first signs of spring arrive.  The roads were wet when I went out this morning around 11 am but dry quite soon after.  There’s a great circle of snow-capped mountains all around – but the wind that blows off them would split you in two.  For reasons too complicated to explain, I’m at present riding a mountain bike which really belongs to Mark and was bought before he became a giant.  I replaced the tubes and have the tyres blown up to my customary 75 psi to minimise the effort required.  Even for my stunted growth it is a tad too short in the seatpost – the legs should be almost straight at the bottom of the pedal travel – so I’m hoping to get something that fits better.  The late Mr Humphries would no doubt measure my inside leg with aplomb.

Lots of reporting of the Registrar General for Scotland today.  He says that, ‘The proportion of births to unmarried parents (including births registered solely in the mother’s name) has continued to rise, reaching 47.1 per cent in 2005 compared to 33.7 per cent ten years earlier and 18.5 per cent in 1985.’  It wouldn’t be quite fair to say that this is another sign of how secular a society Scotland is.  But the conventional organisation of churches assumes a society which has now almost vanished – in favour of very flexible and mobile ways of living and a high level of personal choice in how relationships are organised.  I don’t particularly regret that change.  But it represents a real challenge for churches which, in their heart of hearts, would like to believe that a stable parish system was still possible.

We’re doing a lot of work on our Stewardship Programme at present – part of the Year of Stewardship which we hope will, among other things, improve our struggling finances.  Why is it that we behave as if everything we do in the church has to be designed from scratch every time?  Wouldn’t do that with a car or a plane or with brain surgery, after all.  So carrying as I do campaign medals from many a stewardship programme – pledge cards, visiting lists, training programmes, gift aid declarations and all – I’m trying hard to set out a ‘How to do it’ with seeming to do so.

Greetings also today to the Northern Ireland politicians and the voters on Election Day.  Even if I was still living in Northern Ireland, I wouldn’t have had a vote today even though I lived there most of my life.  Why?  Because I am a citizen of the Irish Republic.  Why?  Because I am content to be so – but also because my parents were born in the then Irish Free State after the partition of 1922.  And, before somebody points this out, I did have a vote in Westminster elections.

Spring is coming and we’ve decided that it’s time to start doing something with the garden here at Blogstead Episcopi.  Some may fancifully think that we’ll be laying out a series of interlocking gardens – formal, informal, cottage, sunken, etc. – through which I and members of the Cathedral Chapter will stroll as we discuss important ecclesiastical business.  But it’s not quite like that.  We have to create something which will cope with the fairly severe climate here .. and something which leads the eye out into the remarkable stretch of countryside in which we live … and which isn’t too demanding to keep.   And we’re getting lots of helpful advice from those who really know about these things.

Not often one has a ‘great day out’. But today’s outing to Dublin with Kenny and David was just that. We did some serious business with our opposite numbers in the Diocese of Meath and Kildare about reviving our diocesan link. I’m finding it easier to view the Church of Ireland as at least partly an outsider – not least because the social and economic changes in Ireland are so enormous that my insider knowledge is already seriously out of date. Business done, we headed into Temple Bar in Dublin where a pub with music provided some welcome shelter from the rain. And then home with Ryanair on what I would say was the bumpiest flight I can remember in a long time. And the landing …. no trickling the Camel over the trees on a wisp of throttle and gently settling down onto the grass of the runway.  If Biggles had slammed the Camel down like that, I am sure the undercarriage would simply have collapsed.