A Dull GLOW

I wonder if my former colleagues will be going to the movies at their INSET day tomorrow. I'm watching "Glow: the Movie" right now - at least, it's running behind my blogging screen, as I can't bear it any longer. In case you're not an educator who's been subjected to this yet, I should explain that GLOW is the new name for the Scottish Schools Digital Network. I know - the connection is not immediately obvious, and if you don't know the URL you might find yourself looking at Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling or Gays and Lesbians of Waterloo, because they're on the first Google page for Glow. Never mind - it might well be more fun than watching Glow:the Movie. In this, a pretty but trauchled young teacher is visited by a sinister character with a ready-brek glow who bears a disturbing resemblance to Tommy Sheridan crossed with the late (and nasty) Trevor from East Enders.

I could go on - but I won't. The movie is exactly the kind of patronising claptrap that gives in-service training a bad name. There are indeed good things to discover as you glow along - but this feeble film is not the way to encourage progress. And who on earth thought of a name like GLOW?

Perhaps someone on relocation from Consignia....

GLOW

Despatches from the East

The Shore, Leith
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

A long day looks as if it might end in food chez edublogger in Leith. I've been up since 5.15am to get to a meeting of the SEC Lay Learning Group; you build in time for traffic jams which are never as bad as you feared - but at least I had time to grab a coffee before we started. An interesting meeting, in which I began to feel less isolated as a visitor from the sticks: in previous meetings I've been terribly aware of how easy it is for people in the city-based dioceses to participate in joined-up ventures for things like Lay education, while we struggle to get together with people in Rothesay, for example. However, I now realise that people in, say, the Glasgow diocese are not particularly keen to travel outwith their own immediate area to meet up, but instead want to have facilitators and so on come to their own individual churches. Just like us, in fact.

However, I am also aware of the danger that the provision of education for all in the church may lead to a position where the clergy are - or feel - marginalised as the laity acquire "accredited" (the big buzz-word) qualifications to do this and that part of the job formerly reserved for full-time, well-educated, stipendiary clergy. Now I'm all for continuing learning and for the benefits of study in spiritual growth and understanding - but I'm also aware of how much we need the experts, the people who were sufficiently bright in the first place to undertake the theological education in sufficient depth to have reserves in place for all occasions. If we dumb down the process which produces teachers and prophets to lead the people, we'll end up with the equivalent of the sheep who charge purposefully about and end up back where they started.

No. The flock still needs decently trained shepherds out there. And the odd sheepdog .....

Eyes on the NHS

After a busy (and non-blogging) weekend of church clear-ups, a wedding, more church and a good walk, I found myself this morning sampling the NHS at its speedy best. Having developed what I considered to be alarming symptoms in one eye on Sunday evening (why is it that everything happens on Sunday evenings, or on Easter Monday ..?) I felt an urgent need for medical reassurance this morning. A phonecall to the surgery had me with the GP before 9am; an hour later I was on the ferry to the other side and by 11am I had been subjected to a thorough examination involving three lots of eye drops (one yellow!) and several bright lights and - final horror - a lens put up against my eye all the better to see it with.

For the hypochondriac and the merely curious: not a detached retina, but rather the gloop inside the eyeball becoming detached from the retina. Means that if I move my head quickly I can see the edge of it as it catches up - and several gigantic (or so they seem) floaters which at the moment are driving me bonkers but to which I will, apparently, become accustomed. We'll see.

But I thought that was jolly good for a much-maligned service. Everyone was charming and reassuring, and I was out in time for a wonderful espresso in a cafe in Gourock before coming home. Now I just need to get rid of the headache .....

And I'm off to Edinburgh tomorrow. A meeting about Lay Learning in the SEC, followed by some Festival: a concert in the Usher Hall on Wednesday evening. If Edublogger lets me use his computer, I may get a blog in edgeways. If not, I'll be back ........

Education for life?

It was one of these afternoons when I hoped not to meet a soul - or at least not one who knew me. Could have been because I was wearing shorts, a cagoule and a black baseball cap - oh, and walking boots. It had been raining in the forest and I was wet. Mrs Heathbank looked similarly juvenile. The dogs lolloped wetly around, occasionally excoriating my bare legs with the sticks they insist on carrying.

And then we met a young woman, walking home up the hill with a supermarket bag. We smiled, as you do in these parts whether you know the person or not. And she beamed. "I know you - I knew you at school!" Turned out I had taught her, long ago when all the world was young and Edublogger was five. Now, at 39, she was a grandmother. She seemed to remember me fondly - "You had short dark hair" she kept repeating. I showed her that the hair, though pink at the edges, is still short and fairly dark. This pleased her. She seemed not to notice the absurdity of my appearance, though she herself was dressed in a seemly fashion suited to adult life.

She had left school at 16, married a guy whose name I could recall as having bad connotations, and been beaten by him for 20 years. Now this gentle soul has found a new life with a new partner. She has lived through all this stuff and she's still only 39. She told me she'd been "rubbish at school". What did we ever do to prepare her for the life she faced? I felt somehow young by comparison. We parted affectionately. She had brightened my afternoon.

I hope life treats her better now.

To the hills, again.

Summit of Ben More ..
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I had hoped that today I'd be able to record that after years of saying "Must climb Beinn Mhor" we'd finally made it to the summit, but after a lovely climb through the forest in hot sunshine and a tussocky scramble onto the ridge we saw the promised bad weather approaching and decided to call it a day. The path up the west side of Beinn Mhor (one of many in Scotland - all these communities in isolated glens naming their very own "Big Mountain") rises from Glen Massan, entailing a good half-hour's walk before you begin to climb. It's a wonderfully lonely place - apart from the man in the enormous diggy-pushy machine making up the road in the glen for timber operations we saw no-one all day. We did, however, see multitudes of little dark butterflies, some hairy black caterpillars, several tiny yellow frogs, a wee furry creature which darted from under my boot, wheatears and other small birds and a kestrel hovering on twitchy wings before diving down at something in the grass.

Given that this is an isolated and - certainly above the treeline - featureless area, with the track virtually disappearing after you leave the forest, a bit more in the way of trail marking would be welcome. There are indeed marker posts and green and white roundels saying "Walkers Welcome" all the way from the car park to ... the top of the path. Then you're on your own. There is nothing to show the best way to the ridge or to the summit, and just this one solitary pole to indicate where the correct opening in the forest will get you safely down. Now, I can't believe that it would ruin this hillside to have some kind of path across it - because if enough people walk in the same bit that's what happens. In fact, walking in this tussocky terrain without a path is pretty tiring and not much fun - real ankle/knee twisting stuff.

If you walk abroad - the Austrian Tyrol, the Dolomites, Switzerland, the Sierra Nevada, New Zealand - there are waymarkers all over the place. There are also walkers. The terrain is still wonderful - even though it is, by our standards, busy. I don't think our climate is going to allow our hills to be crowded, though Glencoe is mobbed by comparison to the Cowal hills. Considerable effort has been put into creating new paths in local walking areas, building them up with gravel and so on. It would cost considerably less simply to indicate the best way onto a hill and leave walkers to wear a path over it.

Rant over. We came down the glen under a spectacular purple sky, with the noise of the thunder reverberating as if a giant were shaking it out among the hills. The colours - purple heather and rose bay willow herb, yellow flowers in the fields, pale dried-out grass, the dark green of the forest - seemed especially intense against the livid clouds. We reached the car as the rain moved from big solo drops to deluge, and drove home through new floods which had magically appeared along the way. The lightning was all around us as we plunged under the tall trees at the edge of Benmore Gardens, hurrying back to rescue our modem (it's ok, BTW) from the storm.

And finally: I've geotagged this photo, and you can see where it was taken on Google Earth. Is this why it's had over 40 views in the five hours since I uploaded it to Flickr?

Love, death and Muriel Gray

I have mixed feelings about what Muriel Gray writes in The Sunday Herald. Often I cheer, decorously, as she swipes at a shared bee-in-the-bonnet. And I loved watching her climbing programmes some years ago. But when she gets on the religion trail I'm less happy. And this Sunday was one of these outings.

She does a version of Mark Antony's "and Brutus is an honourable man" speech (Shakespeare's Julius Caesar) to make us see the absurdity of pretending that it is not religion which motivates the potential suicide bombers. And she ends her argument by saying she doesn't feel she has to kill and maim the innocent because she doesn't believe in a god who tells her to. And we who regularly read her column know that she doesn't believe in any god, but rather reserves her most vitriolic stuff for Christians. At least, that's how I see it - because I'm personally involved.

I am a Christian. And I don't believe in a god who tells me to kill and maim. The god in whom I believe tells me to love. I've to love not only my friends - the easy bit - but also my enemies. That's hard. And the harder thing still is to love my neighbour as myself. And I ask the question that they asked Jesus : "who is my neighbour?" Jesus answered that question with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

I don't recognise Muriel Gray's vengeful gods. I wish she'd - just once - acknowledge that she's being selective. Not that it'll make any difference - because what I believe isn't dependent on her approval, or on anyone else's.

A reminder

Trident on the Clyde
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I caught sight of this monster slipping down the grey river the other morning as I was preparing to leave for my weekend's singing on Cumbrae. It reminded me of a poem by Hilary Corke called "Pompeii", in which the poet asks why the people of Pompeii didn't run away from the volcano which swallowed their town. He answers his own question: the volcano was "always there, making particular rumblings the less cogent". What could the people do, he asks, "but till our vineyards, paint our atria, pay formal visits to the homes of friends ..."? He finishes in the present day, "when all the world is one volcano grown; and though we would fly, there is nowhere to fly to."

In a way, I feel we're doing that right now. We're threatened by terrorism in the air - and I listen to people on a vox-pop moaning that they can't take their handbag on a plane. There is daily carnage in the Middle East - and I'm off to sing about a mouse facing up to a cat. And it's not a matter of putting a brave face on things - we just get on with our own lives because there is indeed nothing else we can do.

When I was a small child, growing up in Glasgow where there were gaps in the tenements - "that's where the landmine fell" - and old air-raid shelters to play in or on, I used to wonder at the stories of my parents, about how they had gone out for a walk on a warm evening and had to run like mad when the shrapnel began to fall around them; how they sat doing the crosswords in old copies of The Glasgow Herald in their lobby press during air-raids - how could they do such everyday things? Was their whole consciousness not occupied with death and fear?

Apparently not. We seem to have the capacity to live with the horrors we create - or even, in the case of people in the shadow of a volcano, the potential for natural disaster. We only get caught up when we are directly affected - see my reaction the other night when I worried about my travelling Americans. I even manage to forget about nuclear submarines until I see this from my window - though it was much harder to forget when Dunoon was a base for American Nuclear subs. We seem to have the capacity to be entirely self-absorbed until catastrophe strikes.

And maybe it's just as well. Or is it?

Please, teacher ....

I don't get it. A quick look at today's BBC weather page for Dunoon shows that today is fine and sunny - and it has been: wall-to-wall sunshine. Great. It also says that the sun index is "low". The next three days will, apparently, consist of black clouds with single raindrops and a bit of sun peeping out - but the sun index will still be "low". On Friday, however, there will be no peeping sun - just a black, one-raindrop cloud - "light rain". But the sun index? "Moderate".

Now, I did want to post a picture of this instead of a link, as I don't know if it'll make sense after today. However, I lack the (probably dead simple) skill to accomplish this. So there are two pleas for enlightenment here. First, I want to know why there is this apparent lack of correclation between bright, uninterrupted sunshine and the sun index. And next, I want to know how to put a screen shot on my blog.

I await edification .....

Rejoice in the Lamb

Celtic cross
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Back to my favourite church today - The Cathedral of The Isles on Cumbrae - to rehearse for a concert tomorrow. Most of the hard work was on that extraordinary piece by Britten, "Rejoice in the Lamb" with wonderful, mad words by Christopher Smart. The choir for this concert is terrific, and by the end of the day it was sounding pretty amazing. I have a solo to sing, in which a mouse faces up to a cat, and I'm indebted to organist Jonathan Cohen for accommodating my tempi (and the odd missed beat) with such aplomb.

Actually the bit I love best in the piece is the moment when we sing "man and beast bow down before him": the organ comes in quietly under the voices with slowly pacing chords as if some great beast - maybe an elephant - were indeed walking with great dignity to worship and "maginify his name". Real spine-tingling stuff!

We're also singing John Tavener's Funeral Ikos, a sombre reflection on what happens at death, wondering if the dead miss us as much as we them, inter alia. The ultimate message is a simple statement of the reward in Paradise for the Righteous Ones. Much of it is in unison, like plainsong, but when it divides into harmony the effect is deeply moving. I'm looking forward to the performance.

And I'm happy to be able to report that my friends made it home to Alabama after a trying journey, albeit minus some luggage. Deo gratias.

Blobs across the globe

I'm indebted to Ewan for his post on Geotagging today - at least, I think I'm indebted: I wasted an unconscionable time today geotagging some of my own flickr photos (example here. I must say I enjoyed returning, courtesy of Googlemaps, to New Zealand and whizzing along the road from Cromwell to Wanaka to place my red blob appropriately. (You'll understand this nonsense when you try it for yourself)

On a more serious note, I'm anxiously waiting for news that my friends Ruth and Ed have arrived back in the States; they were due to fly out from Glasgow this morning. As with all the other disasters - and thank God this so far is a disaster averted - I find I personalise: do I know anyone caught up in this? Is anyone I know affected? I need to remind myself that for every one of my sighs of relief there are many more cries of anguish, and the anguish of the people of Lebanon goes on while we are inconvenienced.

Update

I'm pleased to be able to report that the other half of the Teens blogging at Progress Report has also scored a Credit grade in her English with an overall 2. There are some interesting reactions over at Edu.blogs - not only in the post but in the comments, where one commentator (so far) is obviously wanting "more work" to be done to prove that blogging is a powerful tool in education. No-one is suggesting that this success means every blogger in education will now reach the heights of academe - but with this stultifying caution the technology will be obsolete before its use is widespread. Now, why does that sound a familiar note?

I was also delighted by the rapidity with which one of The Teens dealt with their first assault from comment spam and enabled the word verification to make it less likely that it would occur again. We patronise our students if we imagine that they are any less able to deal with the downside of technology than we are; it's our job, surely, to educate them to deal with life, not try to prevent them experiencing it. Or is it simply that we're terrified that they encounter the problems of the big world when we're in charge of them?

Away from education, I watched "The Constant Gardener", starring Ralph Fiennes, this evening. What an absorbing film - and what an actor. Those who know me will appreciate what a tribute it is that I didn't fall asleep once.

I may, however, fall asleep at the keyboard .....

Eyes fixed on progress

Eye'll be watching you ...
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I just had to use this pic - taken in the aftermath of a scarily efficient eye examination. Made me feel like a corpse - "eyes fixed and dilated"! Even the dreich afternoon felt bright and glaring, if blurred enough to render crossing the road a hazardous pursuit. I'm happy to report that I'm back to normal now.

But I'm even happier to report that at least one of the teens from the Creative Writing blogging experiment has been resoundingly successful in her Standard Grade exams, including her English. You can read what she has to say here. It has long been my mantra that "writers write", and blogging is such a live medium for doing just that. Well done to her, and to my other student who phoned with his good news.

But I must stop thinking like a teacher - don't want to find myself inadvertently trailing up the hill to school next week!

Feast of the Transfiguration

Today is celebrated in the church as the Feast of the Transfiguration, recalling the occasion when Jesus took Peter, James and John up a mountain and was transfigured into a shining figure before them.

It is also the day on which the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

God of the mountain - top,
God of the shining clouds
May the wind of your spirit
Blow afresh in our lives
Renew our love
Strengthen our witness
And send us from the heights of your presence
Transfigured by the radiance of our meeting
with Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord.
Amen

Blaeberries in the mist

What a good day! To the uninitiated, the thought of climbing a 3,000' mountain (actually Beinn an Lochain seems to have slipped from being a Munro these days - has it shrunk?) in thick cloud is little short of madness, but it was so good today. The mist, thick and grey on the lower slopes, became bright and cheerful on the summit, with tantalising glimpses of sun above us. Beinn an Lochain, by the way, rises above the road from Inveraray to the Rest and be Thankful, on the right hand side above the loch.

On the climb, there were two sources of temptation. The first was the presence of blaeberries, purple blobs appearing under my muddy hands as I hauled myself up steps too high for my aging carcass to negotiate elegantly. Always, it seems to me, blaeberries eaten in precarious situations taste the best. I learned that at the age of twelve or so, in Arran.

The second temptation came in the form of this little outcrop of rock, quite near the summit, which sits there crying out to be climbed. I've done it before, on a wonderful sunny, dry day, when I was about 5 years younger and - sadly - several pounds lighter. But it called to me, and we stopped. My nails were full of earth and my toe joints were screaming by the time we continued up the path - but I can still do it: cheers.

What is so special about being up there in the mist, fun and games on rocks apart? I suppose it's the feeling of otherness, of being somewhere hard to reach, whose features are unchanged by human intrusion (ok - path erosion apart), where the bog cotton (pictured) waves in the wind, where a sudden parting of the cloud reveals the huge crags looming above you, or the drop to the distant road, where the scents of heather and wet grass rise all around, where the rocks still held the heat of yesterday's sun - or was it today's? And I supppose there's always the knowledge of danger, of the consequences of a slip in the wrong place, and the awareness that you will only get down again by your own efforts.

And when you do get down, there's the curry - and the gin and tonic ........

Speaking gig

Many, many years ago my No 1 son recruited me to run the school magazine, The Pupils' View. Now, in my declining years, No 2 son has invited me to speak at TeachMeet06 (you'll see the badge on my sidebar) about using blogging to develop pupils' creative writing skills. This is something I'm pretty passionate about, though I'm even more convinced about the potential for assembling and writing Critical Essays, but I'm aware I'm going to feel ...well, not to put too fine a point on it, old. Ancient. Elderly. Maybe that will reassure some waverers. I hope so. I'm looking forward to it anyway, and to meeting some of the folk who post comments here.

Should I wear a twinset and pearls?

Memento Mori

I've used this rather scary pic of a memento mori, taken in Patricio church (see below), to intoduce a brief maunder round the uses of blogging like this. My American friend Walter commented a couple of posts back to thank me for pointing him to the Guardian photo I linked to - and went on to publicise the photo, with its accompanying story, on a chat group to which I also belong.

Now, I realise that on the whole I chicken out of political statements on the chat group, where most of the participants are American. I shy away from the intricacies of debate which might ensue, partly because it will be conducted from a standpoint which I cannot share or involve the politics of the USA, about which I may have strong feelings but feel unable to express them too trenchantly in that forum. I suppose I feel it's like being rude at a party. I've been in that situtation in my younger days, when I would be invited to parties by American naval families and find myself in earnest conversation with the entire wardroom of a nuclear submarine - hard to stay lighthearted and inoffensive there! Sometimes I would allow myself to "come out" as a member of CND in a one-to-one with an admiral (Yes, they were there too) but it was a tightrope - you're at a party and you're a well brought up person .....

Anyway, the gist of all this is that I feel free on my own blog to say what I want to. In public - if anyone wants to read it. Even if I don't have much to say. And here I'm going to reproduce what my friend had to say, because it gave me hope. He wrote this:
" We who sit so comfortably far away from the carnage, we can watch the television yappers talk so bloodlessly about strategies and provocations. But, somehow, we must find a way to demand, first, that our own military no longer be used as the enforcers of the pax Americana which is no peace at all. Then, we can demand that those whose militaries we support be accountable or go their own way."

Amen to that.

A critical study of the rural road network in Wales ...

Living as I do in the wilds of Argyll, I'm fairly used to single-track roads. In fact, because I actually learned to drive here, I'm more at home on a tiny ribbon of road over a moor than I am on a motorway, where I find the rest of the population aggressive and unpleasant. (This may well be a subjective reaction. Nothing personal, then.)

Wales does scary single track roads. The photo gives some idea of the scale of the roads I mean, but I was in no position to leap out of the car to take photos of the really exciting ones where the high hedges crowd in on the tarmac and you can't see more than a few yards ahead. There is a network of these roads all over the border region - I never got much further; for all I know they're all over Wales - and we were driven around on them by our hosts as we visited the tiny churches of my other pix.

It was at the end of a long hot day when we had Our Big Adventure on a Small Road. We had embarked cautiously along a dark green tunnel under the trees, nettles brushing both sides of the car, when a car approached, firmly, from the opposite direction. Consternation: there was nothing remotely resembling a passing-place. They don't actually mark passing places anyway - you have to guess. So we reversed, squeezing past a group of walkers with a dog and sidling into the entrance to a field. The other car passed. The occupants waved, but grudgingly. We set off again.

We had progressed slightly further when it happened again. This time we tried negotiating with the other driver, but no: there was, she averred, absolutely nowhere behind her where two cars could pass - not for oh, a mile and a half. Like fools we believed her and did it all again, this time nearly squashing the dog. While we sat in our gateway not one but four cars passed, their drivers looking neither to left not to right - let alone acknowledging their good fortune.

We set off again. This time we tried a bit of speed. We passed the walkers, who cheered ironically. The trees thinned, the light grew, we passed at least two perfectly adequate passing places (so driver No. 2 simply couldn't reverse) - we were free! Greatly cheered we sped towards Hay on Wye. Thoughts of tea and buns formed unbidden. And then we caught up with the Tesco delivery van, and thought perhaps we could follow it all the way ....

Until it stopped. The reversing lights came on. I can't actually bear to tell this bit - in fact, I am unable to recollect it with any clarity at all because by this time I was giggling helplessly in the back seat and had infected both the driver and her husband. I don't think Mr Blethers was quite so affected - but then he's used to me. All I do remember is that we ended up in the only gateway for miles, our nose halfway into a bush, giggling like ninnies while the Tesco man reversed past us into the clutter of Range Rover and green car which were already behind us. His face was grim. The idiot pensioners (for that's how we must have appeared) sniggered all the way into Hay.

So spare a thought for people who have to drive as they work in the Black Mountains of Wales. And don't even think about going there on a hot summer Sunday. Stick to Argyll - there's no-one there.

Roman bread!

Roman bread!
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Today being a dreary, typically West Coast Summer Day I made bread. I make it quite often, actually, but usually leave it to the breadmaker to do the whole thing. However, this time I used Spelt Flour, bought on my travels Down South (West), and used a recipe which was apparently used by the Romans 2000 years ago.

Spelt - I had heard of it, just - was one of the first grains to be grown by early farmers as long ago as 5,000 BC. Hildegarde of Bingen, of whose plainsong I am a fan, wrote some 800 years ago about spelt: "The spelt is the best of grains. It is rich and nourishing and milder than other grain. It produces a strong body and healthy blood to those who eat it and it makes the spirit of man light and cheerful. If someone is ill boil some spelt, mix it with egg and this will heal him like a fine ointment." I found it interesting to use - the recipe made a very floppy dough (very sticky!) - and rose, or rather spread, with surprising rapidity. The recipe was simple, using olive oil, honey and salt along with the water and yeast.

I'm waiting to see if I become noticeably light and cheerful, let alone stronger, but meanwhile it was jolly good.

Monumental remorse

Patricio church - interior
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

This little church, hidden away at the top of a hill in Wales, was originally built after the murder of S. Issui, a holy man who lived beside a well at the foot of the hill. The well is still there, and people have left little crosses of sticks and other small offerings around it in the bushes and on the wall. A peaceful place of great beauty arising from an act of violence upon an innocent man, arising because of the remorse felt at such an act, hundreds of years ago.

I can't help thinking right now about the acts of violence being perpetrated on the innocent in Lebanon. Last night's news from Qana showed the innocent all right, slaughtered randomly in an Israeli attack. The picture here,at Guardian Unlimited is unbearable. Yet the people responsible don't really seem to feel much in the way of remorse - "we weren't aiming at civilians" doesn't really have the same resonance as building a church, useless though that would undoubtedly be in the circumstances.

I'm also struck by the courage of reporters like Fergal Keane. He's won all these awards for his work, and there he is, right in the middle of the suffering - helpless, like the rest of us. He does, however, show us what's happening. And he appears to suffer himself - how could he not?- beside the Lebanese victims.

I'm no politician, and no strategist either. But it seems to me that we need to erect some monument to the innocent suffering of the Lebanon. Not a church. I was thinking more of the West saying "Hold, enough" - and meaning it. And if Bush can't bring himself to do it, the rest of us should.

PATRICIO
St. Issui

And here, because a holy man was killed,
a small church dreams on its unlikely hill.
The soft wind blows the distant wails of sheep
where moles disturb the old forgotten dead
and in these walls I sense the deep-packed prayer
which flowered above the hermit of the well
and add my own, ephemeral as the breeze,
and listen for an echo from my God.

C.M.M. 07/06

Politely Celtic

Church of St Mary, Pilleth - interior
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Just back from the Welsh Border - we were on the Herefordshire side, but seemed to spend most of our time in Wales - I can't help reflecting on the Mass we attended in this ancient little church on Sunday afternoon. We had discovered when visiting earlier in the week that it was to be a "Celtic" Eucharist, and thought that it might be up our alley. The acoustics were wonderful for singing - these stone walls (very ancient - look at the angle on the left of the altar. It's propped up outside by a buttress)

Well, there were several John Bell songs and a lot of congregational responses, and yes, there was indeed the typical repetition of images associated with what is known in crueller circles than this as "the Celtic tweelight". But it was all incredibly polite. These burnished, gently mewing and on the whole English accents sounded far too .... smooth? Genteel? I don't know what I had expected, but this was strangely bland.

And another thing. See how God speaks to Elijah in "a still, small voice"? In this company he wouldn't have been heard. Not that they made a huge racket - not a bit of it. But they never stopped. The celebrant spoke smoothly and seemed never to come up for air; when he did, the deacon took over, and, for a bit of variety, the congregation rose and sat and intoned responses several times on every page.

A disappointing experience. Maybe I'm looking for something a bit closer to nature - passion and silence in equal measure. But I'm past the time when I thought it best to address God in tones of sweet reasonableness. And surely we need to listen?

On the road again ...

Rennes, deserted on July 14
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

This view of Rennes, taken from the car park of the Gare SNCF on the morning of July 14, seems a suitable one to illustrate my last blog post for a week or so. France was on holiday that morning, and I'm off on my travels again, heading south into the heat of England for some TLC with friends. It's hot enough here, in all conscience - 20º C at 10pm in Dunoon is pretty extraordinary, and we hit 30º this afternoon.

The trip will probably exacerbate the strange dreams I've been having: I waken thinking I'm sleeping somewhere different - a cave, a distant chateau - and worried because I only seem to have a T shirt with me. It takes several minutes to work out that I'm in the room I should be in - but as I keep changing rooms, so to speak, that's confusing too.

Maybe I need to settle down for a while?

The Wedding - final act.

A newly married couple in France have to have stamina ( I did wonder about the use of a singular verb there, but decided I was thinking of them as two individuals ...) Not for them the vanishing on honeymoon, leaving the guests "stranded on the end of an event" (spot the quote?). No, they must reappear for lunch the following day. And so it is that after a night in four-postered splendour, breakfast at which not quite all of us appear and much scurrying from chateau to cars we find ourselves heading back to the car park where the previous day began. Another procession into the countryside brings us to a rustic restaurant where a room has been set aside for us (see photo). Despite thinking I might never eat again, I am soon tucking into charcuterie (Except the andouille. Je ne l'aime pas), crudites, Poulet en cidre, fromage, tarte aux pommes ....and cidre. I love Breton cider.

All this is ended by our having to return the Godfather to Dinard Airport. He is playing the organ in the cathedral on Millport the next morning (he did too) When we finally return to the farm to meet up with the other two Mr & Mrs McIntoshes and the rest of the family, we celebrate again - our own wedding anniversary. (See teachers? all get married in July, but.) More champagne. More food ....And then it is over.

The following morning we deposit Mr & Mrs Edublogger on the TGV to Paris - first class - and begn to think about having a wee holiday. No, that is not Edublogger in the photo - the driver was a jolly man and I told him to drive carefully. In the next few days we shall visit our friend Claudine and meet her father Yves again after a gap of six years. We shall dine with Pascale, and we shall walk along the beach at low tide and drape delicate green seaweed around our toes. We shall meet up with lingering wedding guests and greet the members of our new French family. And finally we shall go home and upload photos and blog as though the world would end.

But first we have to watch the footie ....

The Wedding - part two

McIntosh group 2.
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

The bubbles are beginning to subside by the time we arrive at the chateau, a magnificent pile hidden deep in the countryside to the east of St Brieuc. This is partly due to the fact that the drive was undertaken at the speed of the vintage Citroen, and I wonder if I too should have had a bottle in the car. I would, however, have had to share it with the piper and the two wedding guests to whom we have given a lift. Toyozo, squashed in the middle, has fallen quietly asleep but revives as we arrive.

We pose for photos in the garden, and I give my camera to Grant who takes the pic here. I note that some of the angles would incorporate a particularly erotic statue into the group photos, and hope for decorum among the snappers. The final mass photo has all the kilted men at the front - they are obviously the glamour factor here. And then it is time for the meal. We who have visited earlier lead the way through the gardens, under trees and round corners, to the reception room, now splendid with lights and alive with music. There is earnest debate about whether we are allowed to throw paper petals outside, and the crowd flows outside and in again as the piper marches up the path with the newly-weds in tow. We chuck our petals with abandon and cheer happily. It is time to eat.

The food is magnificent:

Amuse bouche
Saint-Jacques Lutées, Emincé de Légumes aux Graines de Fenouil
Magret de Canard Rôti,
Poire Pochée au Vin Rouge, Sauce au Miel
Croustillant de Pont l’Evêque
aux Epices Douces sur Salade
Framboisier
- this last the wedding cake, but not the dense article of a British wedding. This is a fruity, moist creation on several platforms topped off with fireworks, which splutter and flame as two tall-hatted chefs carry it in to the accompaniement of the pipes. We eat, drink wonderful wine, and talk, because the music is just right for conversation. There are speeches in English and in French - the groom makes the French one. He gives the two mothers bouquets and I plant mine on the table in front of me. And then we dance. The first waltz has a tune specially composed for the occasion - a pipe tune named after the bride. We all join the couple on the dance floor. But here convention ends. The groom is determined that les francais will dance the Dashing While Sergeant and seizes a microphone, to call the dance in French as we twirl obediently. Soon the floor is riotous with the hilarity of a ceilidh. We are having a great time. I reflect that I may be getting too old for this sort of thing, but cannot feel my feet and decide not to think about them. I remember that I was going to change into another garment before the dancing, but it no longer seems important. A small boy materialises beside me holding a rose which he has obviously picked in the garden. He hands it to me, solemnly, and plants a wet kiss on my cheek before dashing off. I feel absurdly touched.

The evening ends with everyone in the circle for Auld Lang Syne. The piper leads the couple off into the dark garden, down the path to their room in the chateau. Suddenly the room feels empty, and guests melt into the night. We can hear cars starting. Clutching my bouquet I head off to the four-poster bed in an extraordinary room where we will stay the night. Suddenly I can feel my feet again. It is time to give them a rest.

The Wedding - part one

The procession to the port
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

The wedding day begins cloudy, but the rain is fitful. It is warm and windless. No-one will die of heat exhaustion because of wearing a kilt and hot socks. We scuttle about having showers and worrying about l’eau chaud. Some of us return to the chateau with a bootload of bouquets and deck the pillars of the room where the reception will be. It is already transformed – beautiful white linen, silver candelabra on every table, coloured lighting. The DJ is setting up his gear and the waiters are bustling wih cutlery and glasses. We all feel considerably happier and return to Pordic. L’eau is still chaud and in no time at all we assemble, looking beautiful.

In France when there is a wedding the cars involved are decked with tulle ribbons. We tie ours to the aerials and wing mirrors and set off for Binic. By the time we begin to walk round the inner port to la Mairie, we realise we are attracting considerable attention. Cars swerve dangerously as their drivers turn to gawp at the four men in kilts and the piper – and she hasn’t started to play yet. Men shout greetings from cafes as we pass. We feel like celebrities and the rain has stopped. We meet more kilted amis in a bar, and le frere de l’lepoux et sa femme. (I’m sorry – there should be accents all over the place but I’ve forgotten how to do them and he who might tell me is still on his honeymoon). The piper strikes up outside the mairie and a small crowd gathers. Some of them are guests. I meet old friends – Eric, in his kilt, and Claudine and Christian, whose wedding we attended in Brittany several years ago. It is almost 3 o’clock. Ewan fiddles with his (self-tied) bow tie. At least the Travel Wash removed the blood from his wing collar (a handy tip, that, for all bridegrooms). The pipes play louder. The Deputy Mayor – a cousin of the bride – has arrived in her tricolour sash.

At ten past three a black 1939 Citroen appears, covered in bows. The bride looks stunning. She looks stunning in jeans, actually, but today she is wondrous. She has greenery and flowerbuds in her hair. We all sit in the front rows of chairs, and everyone else piles in behind, around, taking photos, gazing, talking. The ceremony is in French, but I can follow most of it. The mayor calls the bride “ma petite cousine”, which I find very touching. She struggles with the pronunciation of “Dunoon’ – but who wouldn’t? President Chirac looks on. No, he’s not a guest, but his picture is on the wall. More photos, rings exchanged – ‘tis done. We pile out to throw rose petals; the pipes ring out again.

The day becomes increasingly unlikely as we process round the port to the quay. The photographer will accompany the newly-weds on a boat trip. We scan the entrance to the port for a speedboat – it was to have been a sailing boat but there was a problem which my French isn’t up to divining. When the boat arrives, I find that I too am expected to board, along with the father of the groom and the mother of the bride. None of us falls in despite the slimy nature of the steps down to the water. The jolly friends whose boat it is help us aboard and off we go. The guests wave encouragingly. The newly-weds take turns to drive the boat. Mercifully it is calm and windless. We take pictures and return safely.

This part of the day ends with the vin d’honneur in a hall above the tourist office. There is a considerable quantity of wonderful champagne and some of the best nibbles I have ever tasted. (Caviar-like ingredients feature prominently) Every time the bride moves off, the piper plays. It is very splendid. Everyone is chatting; inhibitions over language are overcome by alcohol. My No1 belle-fille takes a bottle of champagne into the car which son No 1 will drive to the reception. Happily, there are two other passengers in their car. Everyone who can lay their hands of a ribbon of tulle ties it to their car, and we form a procession round the carpark. The newly-weds are in the vintage Citroen at the front as we set off out of town. We all hoot our horns. It is fun – a sort of carefree misbehaviour allowed by the spirit of the event. Other car drivers hoot and wave as we head for the motorway. The evening lies ahead. I hope the effect of the champagne stays with me until I can eat again.

Wedding (f)eve(r)

The church, Binic, evening
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

The day before the wedding is somewhat fraught. For a start, it rains heavily all morning. We have all heard the downpour in the night, and on a nocturnal wander I saw the lightning over the fields. Brittany sous la pluie is if anything even more depressing than Dunoon on a wet day. There is, however, much to be done, and most of it involves driving our hired car (isn’t it good that it’s not in Rheims?) hither and yon. Yesterday we drove to St Brieuc station to meet l’epoux, and later to the airport in Dinard to collect his godfather. Now we must return to St Brieuc to pick up flowers, and then find what seems like an industrial complex in the middle of nowhere to be given the tablecloths for the vin d’honneur. We scuttle about St Brieuc in an un-Scottish sort of way, inadequately sheltered under small umbrellas instead of sensibly clad in cagoules, and I am wearing sandals. My feet become distressingly soggy. They will remain thus for many hours.

The expedition to find the tablecloths takes on a comedic frenzy at a roundabout when the back-seat drivers start shrieking “tout droit” and the driver makes a smart right turn. He skids to a halt on the stripy bit of road when the howls of “Non, non!” reach a wild crescendo. We find the tablecloths and all is well. The driver – who is also the father of the groom – myself and the Godfather steal half an hour off-duty to sing in the empty church in Binic. The acoustics are magnificent, and the Godfather has brought a copy of Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices. We feel suddenly at home, as if the church is our own.

We make an expedition to the Chateau du Val, where the reception will be held. We go en masse, in two cars, and stand menacingly around the garden while the about-to-be-married couple argue with the receptionist about the numbers expected. The receptionist looks as if she has a bad smell under her nose, and we prepare to join battle. However, we hear laughter and realise that charm – or something: this is all in French – has won the day. We return chez nous, dropping the bride off chez sa mere, and collapse with pasta and a bottle of wine or two. Last night we all ate together – both families – in a creperie, but tonight we are observing the proprieties. And besides, the bride has to do things with these flowers ……

Never realised weddings were such hard work.

In hot water ....

As you will now see, the ferme laitiere proves most agreeable - and yes, we did manage to find it again in the daylight, at the expense of several mobile phone calls to establish which tiny road we were to follow. Pordic is not a one-horse town, but is instead spread on both sides of a minor motorway - hence the confusion, and hence the wonderful moment when in the car of son No. 1, using sat-nav, we drove down an ever-decreasing roadlet until we found ourselves nose-on to a bush, with the dual carriageway a tantalising two metres away: the road layout is obviously comparatively recent.

But this is turning into a deconstructed narrative, and I was bent on the continuous and linear present ..... And so it is, on day two, that we run into a small problem avec l'eau chaude. At what any evening-ablutionist considers bath-time, there is no hot water. There are no noises coming from the tank. We have a sink full of dirty dishes and the mother of the groom wants a bath. There are still lights in the farmhouse across the yard. Monsieur G, he of the short stripey shorts and the green wellies who bears a distinct resemblance to Warren Beatty in his heyday, may still be awake. We phone him. No - I phone him, because I speak French. I know that this burden will fall on me again, and I shall have to make idiotic requests sound plausible and reasonable. Monsieur G. appears. I fear he has been abed - he is wearing checked slippers instead of wellies.

After much French muttering in a cupboard, fetching of spectacles and peering at fuses, he emerges. He has, apparently, put the boiler on "forced marches". It is, he asserts, needing someone to clean it, and to that end a man will come tomorrow and all will be well. Half an hour later, there is enough water for a shower. But - and here I abandon once more my linear narrative and leap forward - we fear he may have been ever so slightly niggardly with his explanations - and perhaps with l'eau chaud. We discover for ourselves the secret of the "forced marches", and the final days of our stay are filled with hot showers and clean dishes. Perhaps we are over-keen on our showers, but we are there to do much socialising and there are many of us - 8 adults in the house on one night after the wedding.

Les odeurs des vaches, maybe - mais pas les odeurs des Ecossaises!

All for Edublogger's wedding ....

As promised, waiting world: the first instalment of the epic. More to follow. If you can't wait - and your French is up to it - you can catch the day itself over on Eric's blog In the meantime, this is my version, and I'm doing a Charles Dickens:

We are in a hired car. It is dark - late and dark. We have negotiated the road out of Rennes, and before that the horrors of the TGV station in Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Not that I'm complaining about the French trains - more the officials who refused to alleviate the anxiety of would-be passengers by confirming which part of the train we were to board. Dammit all - we might have ended up in Montpellier or something! But at least we’ve found the Hertz car – in Rennes airport as hoped. Not in Reims. We’ve scored.
But a nos moutons. Edublogger, henceforth known as L’Epoux, has told us that Pordic is a one horse town – only one street – and that our ferme laitier will be a scoosh to find. Not a bit of it. We stop outside a wonderful church and phone mon beau frere. (sorry about all this French – it just sort of slips in). Shortly he appears, circling the square in an unfamiliar car. We follow him as he disappears round a roundabout, over a bridge, and down an ever – narrowing road into the darkness of the Breton countryside. Smell of hay through the air vents. No house lights, no street lights. Trees appear overhead and around us. The darkness is impenetrable. His tail lights swerve round a tall hedge and he vanishes. No – there he is. We’ve arrived. We shall never find this place again. We will be marooned in the Breton countryside for ever.

Will the intrepid wedding guests make it to Le Mairie? Will they ever be seen again? Find out in the next instalment of Les Liasons Etrangers ……

Bonsoir....

Well this is a first - blogging from a borrowed French PC, and tres difficile it is too: the keyboard is subtly different and I keep hitting the wrong keys. But I digress: the wedding was the happening of the year and I intend to bore everyone rigid with the details when I return at the weekend. I shall be posting a journal-type account, complete with photos - but now I shall take my wine-fuddled brain home from St Brieuc and the hospitality of my friend Pascale to the ferme laitiere and the odeur des vaches ....

A bientot!

Au revoir - au reblog?

Well, that's it for a bit. Off we go to Brittany to celebrate Ewan's nuptials. At the moment I'm stressing because we have so much stuff: my cabin bag is overweight and Mr Blethers' kilt in its special holder looks like some kind of military hardware - if he has to open it all up there'll be a right palaver. And as for Annie the piper - I have to rely on her experience of travelling with the pipes to see us through that one!

I won't be blogging this trip - don't think there'll be a connection on a ferme laitiere in the Breton back of beyond (no - we're renting a house there, not bedding down among the beasts) We hope to take many photos, however, and have time to post them online before leaving for our next trip. We're never at home these days ....

I'll be glad when we get to this time tomorrow. I should be on a TGV between Paris and Rennes. We'll still have to find THAT car, of course.

A la prochaine, mes amis ......

Gasworks

Hurrah. We have hot water again. Until last night, I hadn't had a bath for a week. No, I wasn't mingin' - we have a power shower - but I do like to lounge in the bath of an evening. As avid readers of blethers will know, our gas boiler gave up the ghost last weekend. We had a visit from A Gas Man on Sunday - he'd to come from The Other Side and was waiting when we returned from church. He diagnosed a fan problem - and maybe a wee circuit failure - and left.

On Tuesday The Gas Man came - our own, familiar Gas Man who comes to service the fires. He poked about for quite some time, reconnected bits, shoved in new bits - and found that the fan came on when we weren't heating water and went off when we were. Bad, this - meant that there was a great deal of steam and condensation and horrid hot smells. Incidentally, the original horrid hot burny smell was the circuit board, which had emerged blackened when he began his investigations. However, he now found he needed not a part but a whole fan unit - and went off. Still no hot water.

Now it is perfectly possible to boil water in a kettle for dishwashing - but a kettle doesn't go far after a proper meal. And you just can't wash dishes in the shower. So by this time, knowing that TGM couldn't be with us till Friday, we were becoming disgruntled. You don't want to be around The Blethers when we're both disgruntled.

But to the saga. On Friday, TGM returned. A good two hours later he staggered off, sweating but finally triumphant. He'd been banging and heaving and dripping water from the severed arteries of the boiler, and climbing up and down the ladder and putting the power to the fan on and off again (he finally roped Mr B in to help with this). It had been a herculean effort. But why was it so damned difficult? This boiler is only 20 months old. I think it was a bit soon for it to break down, let alone cause so much angst to the faithful Gas Man. Apparently it is Old Technology, because we only want to heat water and not a central heating system. Maybe this is why it takes Old Brute Strength to fix it. We may end up having central heating just to get a decent boiler. There's only one problem.

I hate central heating.

Sound and silence

That was an interesting comment from Ruth to yesterday's post. I can't help feeling it's quite an omission to leave students in training to find out how to conduct funerals during their curacies. Presumably that tends to perpetuate bad practice as well as good - and is that so for other aspects of the job?

As someone who is very aware of the power of words and music, I'd make a strong plea for anyone who is to fill this vital role to have some input from an expert, even if it means importing one every academic session. Both art forms are important for their very lack of specificity; the spaces between the words of poetry are where God can speak, and music is often the bridge over which God dances into our souls. If we try to pin down the work of the Spirit in the banality of prose, we are left wondering if there is anything there at all, and if we do this at a time when listeners are wide open to receive comfort and hope then we shine the bleak light of loss on the moment.

Of course, it may be that there are clergy who will never themselves be able to feel the electricity of silence, to whom music and poetry remain a mystery. But for their sakes, and certainly for ours, I sincerely hope not.

Efficiency personified?

The Bank of Scotland has a new way of ensuring your foreign currency arrives in time for your trip abroad. How far in advance do you think you'd have to order it? I'm not talking something exotic here - I wanted Euros. I leave early on Monday morning, so I ordered mine in my local branch last Monday morning, anticipating through past experience that I'd pick them up on Wednesday - or maybe even Tuesday. But no. Apparently they are now delivered by helmeted men in a van. The van comes on the ferry. And it only comes on Tuesday and Thursday to this far-flung shore. So I got my Euros today, the last possible day I could have collected them. (As you will note, I was otherwise engaged yesterday)

The silly thing is that the Gourock branch still has currency delivered by post. I only had six large-denomination notes in my order - it'd probably cost little more than a first-class stamp to post. Certainly less than it takes to send two men and a large van on the ferry - or round by the road.

Talk about carbon footprints, anyone?

Last Rites

Bit of an emotional roller-coaster this week: after the institution, with its promise of a new day, we said farewell today to my uncle whose funeral we attended in the Borders. It was good that the minister had known him well enough to speak of him with affection and understanding, and it was good to have a chance to meet my cousins again - even if, as we remarked, this only seems to happen at funerals. It's a source of pleasure to me that though (or is it because?) we rarely see one another we seem to gel so immediately, as if that shared childhood, the memories of our parents, feed into something we are hardly aware of until an event such as today. I may be biased, but I'm glad I have such an interesting and attractive bunch of relatives!

A thought about funeral rites: how important it is that we are given a framework in which to let our emotions work. I wonder what training clergy are given in structuring these public events - are they taught about the use of poetry, silence and music to allow people to unclench? A delicate job, and a very responsible one, to help mourners who may have been run off their feet organising everything (and everyone) sit for a space and just 'be'.

But what a satisfying thing to achieve!

Holy smoke!

Well, that was a good day! Exhausting, but good. The specially-arranged weather was wonderful. Our wee church was filled with people from all over the place - Dunoon, Rothesay, Tighnabruaich, Cumbrae, Glencoe, Greenock, Alabama, California (OK - I'm cheating: they live here for now), Oban, Glasgow, St Andrews ... you get the picture - for the institution of our new Rector, Kimberly. As Bishop Martin said, the carbon footprint of this occasion was pretty enormous.

Having arrived here, all these people sang like billy-oh; our organist (Mr Blethers) has this effect on people and the music was noteable. It was great to feel the hordes behind us, and great to have to sing all these communion hymns so's they could all make their communion. We had smoke - a visiting cleric sounded extremely wistful musing on this. Smoke in the sticks is obviously a novel concept for those more centrally placed. And +Martin was conducting the first institution of his Bishopric in the church where he himself was instituted a quarter of a century ago (we're all getting so OLD!). The post-service bunfight was imposing - one of these loaves and fishes jobs where you all get a doggie bag at the end. One lady was heard to remark approvingly on the quality and quantity of the veggie options - we're such a sandal-wearing crowd.

At times like this I feel a distinct sense of deja vu; we go through priests at quite a rate here in Dunoon. But this time it's different: the first woman priest in Holy T only three years after the first woman celebrant here. It's going to be an interesting journey. And that's what it's all about, really.

Trying all round

How's this for a misunderstanding? We've been trying to book a car to get us around when we go to Edublogger's wedding. We arrive at the train station in Rennes at 9.30pm. This, sadly, is 30 minutes after the Hertz office closes (and the Europcar one - they've turned us down already). We rang Hertz during our offline time and thought we'd cracked it. We could pick up a car at a Shell station. Not far - just 100 metres or so. Great.

I should have known better. We're not meant to have things work for us this month. After perusing Google Earth, Google maps, Multimap et al we were no closer to knowing where the Avenue Brebant with the Shell station was. To cut a long story short: Avenue Brebant isn't in Rennes. It's in Reims. That's the other side of France. France is a big place, and it's a long way away in the opposite direction. And no - it wasn't that we couldn't pronounce "Rennes" correctly. Maybe it was the language difficulties when you have a non-native English speaker making the booking at the Hertz end. And a Scot at this end. I'm glad I found out in time. But I'm still waiting to see if anyone will wait an extra half hour for us to get there.

And the gas boiler with which I began this blogging lark in November died on us at 1am today. Labouring fan, nasty hot smell, no pilot light, no hot water. As a result of this trauma, I am able to tell you that last night the sky never grew dark. At all.

I saw it.

We are lost, we are lost ...

I was involved the other day in a discussion about how choirs learn music. Some well-known choirs seem to teach music by rote; even if the choristers can read music they will perform without it and everyone has to learn rather than read. I was of the opinion that this would end my choral career, as my memory is becoming less reliable by the day, but recalled the struggle I'd had in my youth to master the alto part in Tippet's "A Child of our Time". In the end, I'd learned it - so that now I can sing bits like "We are lost, we are lost" with remarkable accuracy from memory.

Hence today's photo, for which I am indebted to my bro-in-law: at this moment I was far too fraught to take photos. All I could sing was this wretched snippet of Tippet - inside my head, with what I yesterday learned is called an "earworm". We were indeed lost, as this took place on the search for the vanished Cretan mule path now hideously overgrown with strong-scented jaggies, to which I refer in a previous post. And as I sweated and cursed and coughed and spluttered in the pollen cloud I was singing in my head "We are lost .....". In at least four parts. So despite my ability to read music there is still a memory in there - it just doesn't replenish as it used to.

Another ridiculous accompaniment to my hike was the anxious call of "Help, help", which I and my sister actually uttered from time to time. Understandable in the circs? Oh yes. But I had become convinced that in some piece of literature - perhaps children's literature? - there was a creature, possibly furry, who was in the habit of pronouncing the words "Hellip, hellip." To date I have not been able to find the source of this nonsense, though several people when asked have assumed a far-away look and murmered "Mmm ....yes...but ...?"

So if there is anyone out there who can put me out of my misery and exorcise this particular niggle, the virtual Mars Bar will reappear. Until then, I shall continue to murmur "Hellip, hellip" in times of need. And we can't really have that, can we?

Excellent Women and nothing time

Two reflections after a busy day yesterday. The first came at the end of a meeting to arrange catering for a church bash. We're expecting about a hundred people to descend on us next week for the institution of our new rector, and so here you had a gathering of what Barbara Pym might have described as "excellent women". I have to add that I hardly see myself in that role, but you end up doing strange things on this pilgrimage. There we were, discussing how many "pieces" were required per person - and no, this was not "pieces" in the Glasgow sense but rather items of finger food, not a jammy sandwich but a piece of quiche or whatever. We told each other how wonderful we were, we undertook to visit supermarkets over the water and to arrange for tablecloths. All very admirable, all aimed at smoothing the path and filling the bellies of fellow-Christians.

But then we reached the end of the business. The chat began. And that chat was as loud, as worldly and as bitchy as that heard at any other gathering of women who know each other moderately well. And I joined in as riotously as any. But afterwards I felt ..... disappointed? ashamed, even? If I knew the Bible better, I could make a reference to a bit where it tells us to be different as a result of our faith. So far all I manage to do is be more aware - which makes it worse, somehow.

My other reflection was less disturbing, and slid into my wakening brain as I trogged down the road to the pool this morning at 7.40am. I've been doing this pre-breakfast swim for a few weeks now, three mornings a week. It's no longer something particularly distinctive - just something I do. So it no longer serves as a marker on a specific day. What's the point of saying so? Simply this:

When you no longer go to work, you lose track of days. Apart from going to church on a Sunday, there are no set routines. Meetings migrate from Thursday to Friday as required. And best of all - I no longer dread the end of a holiday, or feel resentful that a weekend is over, or fret because I haven't been able to do what I wanted to in my free time. The best thing about this mode of living is the ability to do what I want to - and if that means doing nothing much, in the way I used to do when I was 15, say, so that a day simply passes ...then that's fine. There's always tomorrow.

There's one caveat, though. I need to be able to say "no" to some demands on my time, otherwise I won't have this freedom any more. I need to be as aware of the concept of "nothing time" as I was when I worked - or I'll never think again.

I think today may be a good day to start.

Summertime

Summer Solstice, eh? Longest day an' that? I can't remember a worse summer day than today has been - rain, gales, temperature more suited to March, inspissated gloom. I drove us to Rothesay this afternoon to do a spot of singing in rehearsal for the service of institution next week - well, I drove to Colintraive to get the ferry. The road was flooded in several places and water pounded off the hillsides and down the ditches, while the wind had the full-blown trees thrashing about. I suppose days like this have always cropped up in the summer months, but I find them intensely dispiriting.

At least I had some exercise: the swimming is coming on nicely at 30 lengths three times a week before breakfast. My pal Di bought new goggles and now steams along faster than ever, while I pant in her wake (literally). I feel one's length must come into the equation ....

Maybe my gloom was intensified today by the realisation that I am now indeed the matriarch of my family. With the death today of my uncle, there is no-one of that generation left and I was the first of the next generation. I can remember the fun I had as a small child with my youngest uncle. Life is very brief, really. May he rest in peace.

I'll finish off with this pic of the lovely house we stayed in in Crete. It is perched on the top of a hill covered in olive groves. Down the road a bit are some orange trees and a couple of lemon trees. I snaffled a few oranges one evening to squeeze for our breakfast - we never saw anyone picking them and they were falling off the trees. This was the second time we had stayed there, but it will be our last as another house is being built further up the road - indeed, at the road end - and the solitude which we so enjoyed will not be the same. In this weather it seems a long way away. My tan is beginning to look a tad yellow - no, I didn't sunbathe: it just happened.

There's always the bottle of Holiday Skin ....

Wish I was here ...

View from under the pines
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

But at least I'm back online, on my own Mac and able to use my photos from our holiday in Crete! I've posted them all on flickr and you can see them either by clicking on this one or by going through the panel of pics on the right hand side of the blog.

And now that I have the photos to illustrate what I'm saying, I will say now that Crete in the spring is amazing. We were there in May; the week before we arrived had been horrid, apparently, but we had fine weather the whole two weeks and by the time we left summer had arrived, with the temperature on our last day up to 38 degrees in the afternoon. We seemed to pass through the Spring weather in our first week, in which we were able to enjoy breakfast on our terrace in the sun (towards the end of our stay the butter tended to melt before breakfast was over) and go for proper walks.

The biggest of these hikes was my third walk down the Samaria Gorge (17 k) - a lovely experience this time as only 700 people were in the gorge on that day as opposed to the 2,000 we'd been among four summers ago. We were able to be alone for long spells of the day, and to hear the birds singing in the trees through which we walked. We also traversed a shorter gorge on the Akrotiri Peninsula, where we visited a deserted monastery deep within the gorge and boasting an extraordinary bridge and a chapel in a cave. Now only the goats were there to hear me ring a trinity of notes on the hanging bell.

Another walk, supposedly lasting two and a half hours, took us all of 7 hours because we were lost. The Sunflower Guide to walks in Western Crete was very specific about leaving the road past a church and striking down a path across a gorge and back to the road over a hill - but hey, there were two churches in the village and the path had disappeared under masses of fragrant but rather jaggy herbiage. We struggled on for a bit, soon becoming rather bloody and coughing our guts up in the clouds of pollen which engulfed us, but admitted defeat and returned to the road which we had already used. I think all the locals now use mopeds and trucks rather than mules and donkeys - and they use the roads and forget the jaggy paths.

We also were able to swim in the sea by our second week. The air was warm but the sea a bit like Tighnabruaich on a fine August day - chilly till you were in. It was never crowded.

Writing this on a bleak June evening just before the longest day - the temperature outside is 10 degrees celsius - has transported me back a month. It was wonderful. I love Crete. I shall go again.

But my next wanderings will be to France. Watch this space ...

Holding my breath ...

No. I'm not. I think I'd turn blue in the face if I did. But I'd like to think that this will be my last post from a hijacked PC: theoretically BT will take over our line from tomorrow and we should be able to get online on Tuesday. I've reached the stage of not believing any more - a cyber atheist - but am ready to be proved wrong.

I'm sitting in a house on the East Bay promenade. The sea is dark grey and gurly looking, and the high tide makes it look as if I'm on a boat with the water surging past the railing - I can only see the road in between if a car passes. My feet are damply clammy after ploughing through the wet grass at the neolithic site at Ardnadam.

But church this morning was lovely. Hugh's prayers for his last Sunday with us were totally apposite. We wish him well, in spades.

The midges were there too. Millions of them. Best to hold my breath after all ...

Moving on

I'm moving - in cyberspace anyway. If you are someone who is used to mailing me at my demon address, please note that this will not be operational for much longer. I've opened a google mail account in the meantime and will get round to contacting you shortly.

We're moving to BT after the most appalling nonsense with our ISP of some 14 years, Demon. I've lost count of the hours spent on the phone to India ( I suppose), being asked to perform the same procedures over and over again. The problem lies with the system rather than with the unfailingly polite help-line operatives: they have to ask the questions on their card, and it is impossible actually to engage in a conversation. I was tempted to ask one of them how many people had died of a heart attack in the middle of a session on the helpline, just to see what he'd ask me to do next. When we finally got through to someone who could operate independently and actually talk with us instead of at us, we initiated the business of severing our connection with Demon.

The truly devoted among my readers will note that this all began with an amazing electrical storm, which hit Dunoon on May 4th. Since then we've been offline. We still are. We spent two weeks persuading Demon that the modem had been fried, and the rest of the time (a) waiting for a replacement and (b) failing to get it to work either. Expert advice (local) tends to be that this modem too is non-functional (supply vulgar expression of your choice). Our idea now is that we should marry up our internet and our telephone provider - perhaps we can get some joined-up thinking as a result.

And after all this I shall need another holiday.

Guardians of ...what?

I’ve been thinking more about what I really wanted to say at the SEC Synod the other day. The thing about having a rush of blood to the head and leaping to your feet to let one of the bees out of your bunnet is that you only have two minutes allowed for the process and you spend some of it telling everyone who you are and addressing the chair politely and according to the proper formula.

One of the things I did manage to slip in was a reference to Guardian Unlimited - and this was not merely maternal pride and prejudice. I realise through seemingly endless discussion that an aspect of blogging which strikes fear into the trembling hearts of the uninitiated is the apparent freedom of people to say what they like. In public. Where it is open to all to comment. A bit like Jesus, maybe? But I digress. What I meant by referring to the Guardian site is that on its newsblog you have authoritative writers doing what they’ve always done : writing about topics in which they have some expertise, or about which they have something interesting to say. Now, I don’t know how far what they say is moderated or edited – but this is presumably a part of the business of being a journalist. The point is that anyone is then free to react to what they’ve said, in public – and to have their opinion in turn debated by other readers. If comments are offensive or out of order in some way, they are removed by someone at The Guardian who is in a position to do this. There may also be some comment made about the direction the discussion was taking.

At Synod there were limited chances for Joe/Josephine Delegate to speak on the issues discussed. Next chance will be in another year. Hardly vibrant, eh? Cold porridge het again, I’d say. Would it not be A Good Thing if issues like, say, the new Baptismal Rite had been the subject of a vigorous online debate during the past year, so that the members of the hardworking Liturgy Committee weren’t required to deal with the opinions that had been backing up since the draft of the new rite was put out for discussion?

Of course it would. 'Nuff said. For now anyway.

Duck broken

I didn't just break my duck at Synod today - I think my will to live got a bit broken too. But I did speak, very, very briefly - guess why? Because the Provincial Web Site was under discussion, and I felt moved to put in a plea for interactivity. I wasn't the first person to use the word "blog", because a previous speaker had suggested that Martin Luther had really done a sort of blog, but the reaction was depressingly familiar.

It seems that the very openness of this kind of communication is too difficult to handle. People might say unguarded things which other people might then read and be misled by. Oh. That's it, then. Like Guardian Unlimited, I suppose? (Sorry - I've forgotten the html for a link, and I'm still not chez moi) Or is it that basically we lack the confidence to recognise that there will always be people to whom you don't listen, and other folk who are daft enough not to know that? There are of course issues about undesired comment - but people who don't themselves blog don't know that we all deal with this perfectly well using the facilities provided, and that deleting unwanted stuff isn't rocket science. And no-one who doesn't blog understands the diversity of acquaintance that the medium opens up, and the possibilities for initiation offered by what can be anonymous participation in discussion.

I'll keep plugging away. I'm happy to realise that old - and new - acquaintances know about my doings because they read this stuff, and I welcome comment on it. At least here I can have the last word - unlike in Synod, where random speakers can always be swept aside by paternalistic closing remarks.

But it's funny that I still come away feeling like a rebellious teenager ....

Update ...

Have abandoned The Blethers and come to the misty East (why does a lovely summer day have to end like a scene from "Hound of the Baskervilles"?) where I can play on my hosts' PC without feeling pressured to deal with my mail and go!

The saga of Demon and the Blethers continues with the thrilling development of actually talking to a native English speaker who managed to hold a few words of unscripted conversation with Mr B. The burden of his message was that he had no words suitable to react to the way we'd been dealt with. There seemed a suggestion that a refund might be in the offing also. But nothing will happen till at least Monday now, so I'll stop worrying. I always remember someone pointing out to me that hope was much less trying than despair, so I'm practising calm despair for now.

And perhaps that's a suitable frame of mind for Synod ...

Random moanings

Another brief wail of despair ... The new modem arrived today, and our hearts quickened a little with anticipation. Was the long drought of the mind about to end? (sorry - that's a quote from R.S. Thomas, I think) How foolish we were. Of course it didn't work. More fruitless hours on the phone, which then died of overuse.

We dumped the helpline and asked a local expert. He gave us the information that some 240 people in the Dunoon area - to his knowledge - have had to have their phone lines replaced all the way back to the pole since that storm. The storm, by the way, seems to have happened in another life. I grow old, I grow old ....

And now I have to go to the Synod in Edinburgh. The joy is that I shall be staying with a friend who has broadband. If I stay sober I may bob up again - or should that be blog up?

Last goodbyes

It's strange how we need our rites to help us cope with the losses and changes in our lives. We can know that someone has died, but if we have not been in the position to be with that person all the time, it is possible to pretend - even if only intermittently - that it hasn't happened. I guess that's a major function of a funeral rite - because that brings it home, and makes us acknowledge that the person, the solid reality that was our friend, is no longer a part of our ordinary lives.

Yesterday our the ashes of our friend Edgar were buried in the graveyard of the church where he served his last ministry before emigrating. The sun shone and the birds sang and it was unbearably beautiful - and as the casket was lowered into the earth and the soil scattered and then shovelled in and the turf replaced the finality of this particular rite struck me with new force. The Edgar who had been so very alive in this place had gone, and this was our way of closing the chapter. He'd have enjoyed the service immensely, I think - and had a good sing - and the last thing he'd have wanted would be regrets. But faith or no faith, we miss the person we knew and feel the emptiness more keenly now that we have completed the ceremony.

We shall not forget him.

Still here - just

A snatched moment on a borrowed PC - again. The good news is that a new modem is on its way. The bad news is it hasn't arrived yet. And then we'll have to get it going .... And the final bad news is that I seem to have broken my toe. It's a strange black colour and hurts unless I sit like a lady and do nothing. This just isn't me. Especially when I can't blog. I shall indulge in a proper rant when I have my own machine - enough to say now that we feel we really have been wrestling with Demons!

Busy weekend ahead. I may not even miss my Mac for a day or two ....

Bluebells and Demon

If I were online properly and chez moi, I'd be posting a pic of bluebells. I've just been to Kilmun Arboretum, where there are millions of them scattered among the trees, with the embryonic bracken fronds pale green and delicate arching above them. The scent is elusive yet magical, and mingles with the pine smells from the forest - you want never to wear perfume again after smelling such perfection. I have taken many photos, and they will eventually - God and Demon willing - appear on Flickr. (I had to put that parenthesis in - too nicely antithetical to miss. Even though I am trying not to be a bore, it's a bit like touching wood - I don't like to assume anything at this point.)

While on about Demon, I'd like to note that they "Don't support wireless connection". Why not? Does any other ISP take a more enlightened view? Or is it just a complication too many? These are not rhetorical questions, so any answers would be a help - though it'll be a day or two before I can see them.

Signing off from the world of borrowed dial up ......

Blogless blues - or greys

Today it is raining. The temperature is 7 degrees. The sky is a uniform grey and the sea looks … lumpy. But none of this would matter - well, not really - if I could get my broadband back. At the moment I’m satisfying my cravings by using yet another friend’s PC (all these PCs ..) on dial up, because her modem was also fried. Same storm. Demon are still trying - they rang an hour ago to promise that a BT person would either phone or appear at the door. Maybe it will have happened by the time I go home. Meanwhile, dearly beloved reader(s), don’t forget me - it’s bad enough that the line is dead without feeling I am dead too!

And in Crete the sun will be shining, and the wind blowing the wine-dark sea into white foam, and it will be hot. The white roses at my bedroom door bloomed and drooped within days even though I watered them. Nothing is drooping here except under the weight of rain. Everything is fiercely, aggressively green. But my internet holiday has gone on too long.

And now I must go home and make the lunch.

Still alive .. still offline

Blogging in a neighbour's while their dinner smells delicious, I'm posting this only to show that I'm still alive and back from wonderful Crete. Photos and stuff will follow if Demon and BT ever manage to get us back online; at the moment Demon think it's a line fault and I'm harbouring a secret suspicion that it'll turn out to be a fried modem after all. Right. You saw it here. I'll be honest if/when we find out.

Meanwhile being offline is like having a hitherto unrecognised limb amputated. I keep trying to use it and it's not there. And wonderful though my pix may be, it's not the same when you can't share them.

Think of me, brethren - I shall return!

A parting shot

As I prepare to leave Inverness (I'll have my breakfast first!) a last word before the silence falls (dramatic, huh?) I survived my stint as guest speaker - people laughed, no-one made spit balls (as if they would - this is Hillhead, darlings), and a man whom I remember as an object of considerable adulation when I was thirteen (he was in the First Fifteen) said more than once that he'd enjoyed it. It's extraordinary how strong the memories of school can be - or is it only of a school like this, one where the pupils were part of the "Hillhead Family" and went on after S6 to wear their old blazer with the FP badge sewn over the school one? I don't know. It was a jolly evening and the food was good. And the wine - though mine had to wait till I'd spoken.

And now we're off south again - via Perth, for a Cursillo weekend Closing. And then I'll have to face my poor dead whatever it is. I know my laptop is using the Airport (because I managed to print using it) and Demon tell me the modem is connected to the Internet. So, for that matter, does my laptop. Clearly, something is not being entirely truthful. I may be able to find help - but blessed is she who expects nothing, for she will not be disappointed. Look for me in a month or so.

Besides, Crete beckons. I may never return. And now breakfast smells wonderful.

Blasted off

Well, that was a wee trauma! I was blogging last night while Mr Blethers made the dinner when a mighty lightning flash seemed to come into the study; there was a great "crack" as if someone had hit the metal music stand at the window and I fled - taking my laptop with me. However, since then I've had no internet connection and don't know what particular bit of equipment has had a heart attack. And now I'm in Inverness, borrowing yet another PC to fill in the gaps in my online life.

Why Inverness? Well no, I'm not just running away from the storms. I'm here to speak at a dinner organised by the FPs of my old school, Hillhead High in Glasgow. Seems there's a bunch of them up here who still get together and remember the school in its glory days. And yes, in many ways it was indeed an extraordinary school, and I have many happy memories of it. Thing is, it's the extra-curricular activities I remember - the orchestra, the madrigal group - rather than the teaching. Some of it was well done, but far too many of my teachers in these days relied on the industry and background of the pupils and much of the teaching was, frankly, boring.

We were a well-behaved bunch on the whole, and any badness was of the civilised, sophisticated variety - no spit-balls on the ceilings. Nowadays if kids were as bored as I was they wouldn't just doodle on their French text book - they would be creating mayhem in some form or another. I don't yet know if I'll talk about this with any degree of frankness; I'll try to suss out how rose-tinted are the specs worn by my hosts. But remembering this in preparation for my speech has remeinded me of it - and it's a salutary lesson for any teacher. The biggest crime of all is to be a bore.

Once I leave this computer, it may be a while before I blog again. Treasure my words, gentle readers - I'll be back!

Not again!

I was at it again yesterday. Calmly sitting at a meeting, not actually thinking about blogging at all, and suddenly we were off. The word came up, someone else asked what a blog was, and the resident geek (me) was called upon to lighten his darkness (It was a church meeting – hence the language) Because it was a church meeting, I managed to restrain my own language when the ignoramus in question dismissed the whole idea because it had “such a silly name” and the internet as “the biggest waste of time”. I merely pointed out that it was an even bigger waste of time to career the length and breadth of the diocese delivering information which could travel perfectly effectively via a blog. I was proud of my self-control, but despairing somewhere deep within.

It’s not that I ever did think blogging was the answer to the whole of life – simply an effective tool for teaching and discussion. Ewan has a great post over at edublogs – I’ve pinched a wee bit just to make me feel better:
"The man who doesn’t believe that blogging is a revolution or is educationally sustainable is one of many sceptics and countercultural poseurs who like to preach certainty where the only certainty is that there is none. The problem the sceptics battle with is that there is no viable accountability model, still, for much of what happens on the internet. Or so they think - and this particularly applies to traditional teaching models."
You can read the rest of it here

Thing is, I end up on these occasions feeling like a twenty-something who’s strayed into a pensioners’ party. Why should I have to answer for sexagenarians who refuse to have anything to do with email, let alone any other more advanced form of communication? As far as I’m concerned, if I can do it so can they. End of story. The willingness is all.

On a brighter note, I believe the Standard Grade Writing exam was fine for at least one of my students from Progress Report - so that’s good. Let’s hear it for yoof!

Parting is such sweet sorrow ...

Although we're not actually parting from our Rector, Hugh, the congregation of Holy Trinity Dunoon gave him a great send-off yesterday in the estimable Chatters restaurant where we had a splendid lunch, some heartfelt speeches and some singing: a psalm detailing Hugh's achievements and a parody hymn which you can see over at Di's blog

When you live in a smallish place for long enough, you begin to realise that you say "goodbye" to a great many people. Some of them are people who have played a significant part in our lives, and Hugh is one such. We're delighted he's staying in the area, and hope he has time to do more than cut grass and attack the hedges. As he travels the diocese in his role as Synod Clerk and supernumerary priest, we wish him well.

A speedy recovery for his ailing motor would be a good start!