Well I emerged blinking into the sunlight after two days of Doubt and Disorder Board – to be closely followed by two days of potential-bishop-interviewing. So there was nothing for it but to do some more of digging up the recently laid turf in what is to become the formal garden here at Blogstead Episcopi. So I worked away at it – viewed with some curiosity from the middle distance by a group of deer. Poppy, meanwhile, kept me company. She is now pretty well restored to her former vigour – although the vet thinks that she may have had some kind of slight stroke.
Meanwhile it’s all in my mind’s eye – the scent of lavender, the well-clipped yew hedge and the velvet lawns where I shall walk with my Chaplain in the mornings as we mull over the affairs of the diocese and those minor canonical adjustments which make so much difference to the smooth running of matters ecclesiastical. It reminds me of Hornblower and his 1st Lieutenant taking a turn on the quarter deck. My recollection is that the 1st Lieutenant could only turn when the Captain did. Which should allow me to dump my Chaplain in the yew hedge.