Homecomings…

Coming back to London and my sending church after a term away was a strange experience.

On the one hand everything is very familiar and I all too easily fall back into the old familiar routine and found myself filling in as sidesman, selling cookery books and generally being treated as one of the locals…. And yet there is also the sense that I am not really part of it any more, there are unfamiliar strands of conversations continued on from the weeks that I wasn’t there, new faces in the back row and the surreal experience of visiting the houses of friends and seeing my ex-possessions in new places…

But for all the surealness it was good to go back – to find some sense of the comfortable past among the myriad of the new… and not least to see my gorgeous Julia and know that she has really settled in her new home – a heaven on earth where she can sit above a warm radiator and stare out of the window at the same time – life is so full of simple pleasures when you are a cat….

Topsy Turvey Advent…

Apologies folks for the interruption in your blogging service from up here is chilly Cambridge. I had some serious procrastination to do which was rather time consuming :o)

The good news is that 1 essay is now handed in, I am well on my way with research for the second and I am trying to ignore the third for the moment as it’s really hard! Given that the hand in deadline is still 3.5 weeks away I don’t think, given my Phd level procrastination skills, that’s too bad?! And at least as part of the procrastination I have completed all my Christmas shopping which is a record for me so early in the season…

The last few weeks have been rather liturgically strange. As college terms finish so early we began our Christmas celebrations prior to advent Sunday with a mulled wine and carol singing evening. … I tried not to squirm in church on the advent Sunday following when the preacher was quite firm in his conviction that there should be nothing Christmas in Advent, though I have to say I thought the stern words about simplicity and the church being stripped of its decorations until Christmas eve were somewhat diluted by being given by someone dressed in the most sumptuous purple advent robes I have ever seen!

Things got even more muddled on the following Thursday when we had our last college worship of the term which included both Christmas carols and advent antiphons as well as the gospel choir and a robed church choir performing very different styles of music at various times. This was followed by the lavish Christmas banquet, in the magnificently decorated dining hall (complete with 7 foot glowing santa!)

So I have decided there is nothing for it but to say to heck with the liturgical year and declare Christmas well and truly started – Merry Christmas everyone!