Sorry about the break – I usually do better than that. But even without the excitement of being on University Challenge it’s been busy. An unplanned family visit to Cambridge was followed by the journey yesterday and today for Neal’s funeral in Portadown.

These events are of course extraordinary. I’ll remember many things about it – thousands of people in the main street of Portadown; a spontaneous round of applause for the Gurkha Guard of Honour. Most of all I’ll remember the gentle sotto voce commands to the Gurkha pall bearers – no shouting or display. Just gentle men who had come straight from Afghanistan to lay Neal to rest.

This is what I said.

And there I was – passing a quiet summer evening with the Vestry of St Mary’s, Kirriemuir, discussing matters of mutual interest like raised beds and compost. But when I got back to Blogstead, I met a blizzard of texts and phone calls from sad people who have nothing better to do than watch University Challenge and wanted to ensure that we knew that I had been the subject of a question. Matters to do with the Scottish Episcopal Church are unlikely to be at the ‘starter for ten’ level but one might have hoped for better than a wipe-out.

But for a future edition, one could ask the following:

Name the members of the Gang of Three
What are the provisions of Canon 4:10?
Who was the speaker at the recent General Synod Dinner?

Beyond those, I’d be glad of answers to these:

What should I say to the Pope?
Will there be room for churches in the big society?

Speaking of which, I know that we don’t have a Polish Pope any more. But you’ll be glad to know that our Polish readers are still on board with this blog.

The news creeps up on you gradually. A text from our Mark – the edges of some news reports. Someone from Portadown has died in Afghanistan And gradually it becomes clear that it is Neal – one of the three killed by a renegade Afghan policeman whom they were training.

Neal took the army path after his GCSE’s – school and university and then training. He obviously loved it. He sort of grew up at a different pace – I suppose it made a man of him sooner than the others. He was good at staying in touch – most recently by text and Facebook..

The memories came flooding back – most clearly a picture which is in our house of their Primary School rugby team playing at Ravenhill. And a day we spent with Neal in – of all places – San Diego in 1998. We think about his family – his parents Ivor and Marie, Nigel and Valerie, his cousins and wider family. They will be devastated – but they will be brave. Portadown is famous for many things – some of them not so good. But on the day when you need family, community, neighbourly and spiritual support .. and when you are going to go on needing it … there can be nowhere better to live.

Not the time for questions. Nothing must diminish the value which Neal – and his country – put on the work he was doing, the risks he was running and the sacrifice which he offered. Our thoughts and prayers are with Ivor and Marie and his family.

And the picture – Primary School Rugby at Ravenhill and the team from Bocombra Primary School – Neal is second left on the bench; Mark on the end. All getting the pep talk from Willie Gribben

The loss of young men in car crashes has become a tragic commonplace of Donegal life – so much so that major initiatives have been taken to reduce the toll and they have been partially successful. But the whole community here has been devasted by an accident in which eight people died – seven young men in one car and a elderly man with whom they collided.

With a phenomenon such as this, there is no single cause. It’s easy to see some of the reasons – a rural community almost without significant public transport and therefore almost entirely car-dependant; poor quality roads and thin policing; alcohol; cars as rite of passage and identity symbol for young men. The roads just don’t feel safe. The signs of ‘dough-nutting’ are common – night-time rubber-burning competitions. Groups of young people are out cruising in cars at night in a way which you don’t see elsewhere.

The Inishowen Peninsular – where they all lived – is a long thin piece of land which stretches north near Derry. It’s one of those places which might well be an island – a place apart and close-knit. All week, we watched the funerals and read the statements from grieving parents – and the priest who said to young people, ‘Remember that you are not immortal’ They were impressive to the point of heroic – but there is something unutterably painful about the sight of gentle country people in a place like this – slightly uncomfortable in the formality of unaccustomed suits – dealing with their grief so publicly and with such dignity.

I’m helping myself to a short blogbreak while we are at Blogstead na Mara in Donegal.

Things have moved on here. We eventually decided that we could no longer justify the landline at Eircom’s rates – more expensive than our Blogstead facilities. I did ask why they charged so much – to which I got the usual answer, ‘It’s the regulator’ So that explains that then. So we are sitting in the internet cafe – others have discovered that it is possible to log on while parked in the Square. I invited discussion as to whether or not this was a victimless crime. But we’re on holiday so that’s that. Meanwhile, there circulates among the expat community here [that means Portadown] the information that Eircom will reconnect you and wiave the charge if you ring a particular access number. But nobody can remember what it is.

I’ve been enjoying Ian McEwan’s Solar – and in particular the legend of the unwitting thief ..

And finally I had as one does a special haircut for what they call in Ireland ‘the holliers’. Unfortunately the waiting times in my favourite place in George Street have been extending, so I moved my custom to a random hairdresser in the Dalry Road – only to find that he is Richard Holloway’s hair artiste. Asked for a brief rundown of Richard’s requirements, he responded that ‘He just asks me to whack it off’ But closer to home I have found a Turkish barber in South Street in Perth. He was really good – particularly when he approached the top of my head with his clippers and said rather menacingly ‘Zero’ I did not know whether it was statement or question.

We’ve been doing some exploring of companionship links – and are in period of ‘courtship’ with the Diocese of Calcutta. So it was a real pleasure to be visited by Bishop Ashoke Biswas and Rev Nigel Pope during the week. They visited some of our congregations and came with me to the Perth 800 celebrations in St John’s Kirk and met the Earl of Wessex at the Civic Reception afterwards.

I suppose that I realised that I was in the grip of forces beyond my control when I introduced Bishop Biswas to the Lord Lieutenant – and they immediately plunged into a detailed discussion about which of the churches of the diocese was the one in which his parents had got married. Welcome to Perthshire!

So the photos show the bishop and myself – with Canon Val Nellist and Rev Nigel Pope

They don’t obviously belong together. But here they are.

I contributed six days of Prayer for the Day

I also contributed a Platform piece on the Church in the Rural Community for the Scotsman. It was useful to be able to contribute that during the Highland Show

Well as you know there is only one priestly TV programme for me .. but I still made time to watch the first episode of Rev last night.

It’s hard to know what to think. The whole UPA scene is somewhat distant from Perthshire but the issues are the same. But I’ll content myself with two comments for the time being.

One is that it was good to see them sketching out a serious moral/ethical issue at the heart of ministry. Of course getting your child into a highly-regarded CofE Primary School may not rate with the big issues of our time. But when you are dealing with people who want what they want …. It’s a good reminder that everything tells you everything about everbody and nothing is hid. In my experience, it’s always in the set of the mouth.

The other is my fascination with the spouses of clergy. Please don’t misunderstand .. nothing inappropriate. But I’m the one who came home from the Lambeth Conference saying that the wives of the bishops were often far more interesting than the bishops themselves. But it’s obvious, innit? Those who didn’t choose this for themselves [and I know we would claim to have been chosen, etc] but who are often – in the most direct sense – the backbone of their partner’s ministry … how could they not be interesting? And so it was last night.

Diocesan life in the Scottish Episcopal Church happens in relatively watertight compartments. So it’s been good today to break out of that.

I was in St Paul’s Cathedral in Dundee this morning. I couldn’t get to the Institution of Jeremy Auld as the new Provost. He’s taken on a challenging ministry and I was glad to join them this morning – a lovely building, wonderful music and a congregation in good heart. So this is what I said

This evening saw the Ordination of Valerie Walker in our Cathedral in Perth – the preacher was Bishop Mark of Moray, Ross and Caithness. We’ve set up Valerie’s curacy as a Diocesan Curacy – in which she will serve in Holy Trinity, Dunfermline, with St Margaret’s Rosyth and in St John’s Alloa. We need to provide good training curacies for our newly-ordained clergy. But we find it increasingly hard to find single congregations which can take that on. So holding it within the diocese enables us to broaden the experience for the curate – and give more of the diocese the encouragement of being part of the ministry of a newly-ordained person.

There’s a sort of rule that I don’t allow the various bits of my life past and present to collide here – but I’ll make an exception in this case.

Back to Portadown yesterday for the opening of the new Parish Centre at Seagoe. It was a wonderful day for the Parish and great to meet people with whom Alison and I shared so much. These things take a long time – this project has been 15 years in thinking, planning and praying. My successor Terence and I looked at each other in mutual admiration – him at the effort which we all put in to getting the plans agreed in my time; me at his ability to find £1.3m and the energy to get it built. Why so long? Paradigm shift, of course. This is the move from Church Hall as a place for recreation and friendship for the members of an existing church community to something quite different .. a building for mission, facing outwards to the community, equipped for hospitality and learning, directly linked to the church and with a new worship space at its heart. One other thing. The 15 years happened to coincide with some of the most difficult years of community tension in Portadown – and yesterday this bit of the Church of Ireland community made a very positive statement about its future with representatives of church and community there to share it and the Roman Catholic Bishop on the platform. And this is what I said

If you want a look at drawing and plan, they are below