Month: January 2007

Hilary Clinton says, ‘Hair matters in politics.’

It’s as well the church is a politics-free zone – otherwise I would be in difficulties.

What an exciting day! Tayside Police have now located the Diocesan Office and hope to return it to us shortly. Alicia hopes to be present for an Identity Parade. It’s real Enid Blyton stuff. Tim’s zeal in creating an on-line photographic record has been a real help – maybe he should photograph all of our members as well in case they are stolen by other churches and we need to identify them.
Meanwhile, the real business of today was the Institution of David as Rector of the Central Fife Team. This is a group of congregations in Glenrothes, Lochgelly and Leven – some of it is in the old industrial areas of Fife – Lochgelly has the lowest cost housing in Scotland. But as we drove through the housing estates towards the church, I felt quite nostalgic about working in this kind of community – these are wonderful places in which to minister. There is warmth and friendship – the lack of long tradition means that you can try out new things – and the core of faithful and committed members is second to none. Good things to come

It was a bright clear day in Perthshire today – and you could see extra length in the daylight for the first time.  So there is hope.

Meantime, I ploughed into the post-Christmas backlog – not helped by the theft of the office computers over the holiday.  So we’re playing out the wise and foolish virgins scenario in respect of the effectiveness of our back-up procedures.  I’ve become a devotee of on-line back-up with Mozy.com and BT Digital Vault – anything which means I don’t have to think about it has to be good news.  So I’m a sort of wise but ‘hands free’ virgin.
And it was a great break visiting friends and family – although Donegal, Leicester, Cambridge and home turned into a 1200 mile marathon in the faithful Passat.  It’s done 137000 miles now but no problems apart from the odd waft of curry smell from cooking anti-freeze in the leaking heater matrix.  Come to think of it, it seems to have more energy than I do – but tomorrow is another day.

Oh – and by the way my Unionist friends in Northern Ireland would not have enjoyed the patient explanation which I received from a nice lady in the DVLA in Dundee today when I tried to tax the Passat and discovered that I had forgotten to register my change of address.  It went roughly, ‘Yes Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom but the system operated by DVLNI is not connected at all with DVLA.  So you have to re-register your car when you move from Northern Ireland.’   That must be what Drumcree was about and I never knew.

A little late – but not too late for the New Year Resolutions.  Boris Johnson in the Independent said that his were: Rise Early. Work Late.  Eat Less.  To say that I am not sure about mine suggests a fundamental lack of resolution.  But here goes:  Rise earlier; go to bed earlier; cycle more; eat less; pray more; drink less; remember to be kind; be braver when the frites are down; don’t take myself too seriously; take myself more seriously than I do.  So if I have difficulty with the concept of New Year resolutions, do I really have problems with the idea that change is possible?

Both places where the culture comes in bite-sized chunks – so an overnight sea crossing between the two was always going to be an interesting experience.  In the end, it was a bit like the church at both its best and its worst – lovely people doing their very best but they hadn’t quite worked out how to do it. 

We sat in the cold waiting to check in for a while – and then another while.  Alison was getting restless but was totally disarmed by the greeting from the staff, ‘I love your Radley handbag.’  And then we moved on to the Security Staff – ‘Are you carrying any dangerous substances – or any substances for which you require a licence – not including the wife?’  As they say in Belfast, ‘Hard to beat.’  But better still – after we had waited another while in the cold – was the wonder of an escalator from the car deck upwards.  But the queue at the top to collect cabin keys was so long that people were having to run briskly backwards on the spot because they couldn’t get off.  But the ship was big and the cabin was great so we survived a rough crossing well.

Seeing Liverpool in the dark and the dawn reminds me that the generation which has grown up with Easyjet and Ryanair knows nothing about the way in which most Irish people’s experience of England began with unslept and unwashed dawn arrivals.  For me, ‘abroad’ began with a childhood crossing from Cork to Fishguard on the Inisfallen and somebody selling the Western Mail on the train to London.  Nothing has ever again seemed as foreign as that.