Month: January 2024

I ran my miles, of course, and had a cup of coffeee and fruit. Will take tea upstairs to Margaret, clean up, and head to Morning Prayer, then shop for groceries and return home to pass the day tidying and helping Margaret. And in the evening, will welcome parishioners and friends to the official beginning of my new ministry at St Helen’s, St Michael and All Angels’s, and St Nicolas’s. Be there, or be… whatever geometric solid you prefer.

Oh, and Sancte Carolus, Rex et Martyr, ora pro nobis!

Ran my short route this morning — just felt like it — and came home to coffee, hot breakfast, a leisurely clean-up and change into church clothes, morning Mass, for the last time not-as-staff.

This licensing business is beginning to seem like a classic mild, but utterly incongruous, English film comedy. The heart of the matter is an old codger who couldn’t get a job is being enrolled as a part-time member of staff here. Yet the Bishop of Dorchester, the Archdeacon, the Area Dean, the Mayor, the Deputy Lieutenant, and one or two other local dignitaries are all trooping up for the occasion. Add in a number of our friends from furth of Abingdon, and all the elements will, be in place for cases of mistaken identity, for mishaps with precious ceremonial items, visitors getting lost on their way to our somewhat tricky-to-navigate municipality.

And it’ll be my last for a while, since — if I read the rota correctly — I’m preaching at St Helen’s every Sunday for the next four weeks. Two more (chillier, 2°) miles in the book, cup of coffee, and about to say Morning Prayer. I expect Margaret and I will do some tidying up, as well, looking ahead to visitors on Licensing Day. Plus, time to push into essay-writing as well as homiletising…

Two miles, fruit breakfast, Morning Prayer, coffee in town (at Throwing Buns — gluten-free scones for Margaret), chemist’s, library for some books about the history of Abingdon, then into Oxford for the New Testament Seminar. It’s a long, long bus ride home at rush hour on Fridays, but then I’ll come home and put my feet up. After I cook dinner.

Big teaching day in the family: Margaret had her two-hour lecture in East Oxford, and I had two tutorials at Oriel. Add in the to-ing and fro-ing of getting to town, and we’re well tired. I did run my miles this morning, and of course said Morning Prayer and finished marking the essays for today’s students. Still, a nap would have been nice.

The weather was warmer this morning (9°), as the third blustery, rainy storm to cross Great Britain in the last few weeks passed through. I had a wee bit of a lie-in, ran my two miles, had some coffee and fruit, said Morning Prayer and consulted with my colleagues, picked up some groceries, and got hom a little before Margaret left for tea with an Abingdon friend. Today is for marking, so I’ll devote the rest of the day to tomorrow’s tutorials and thesis consultation.

Two miles in the morning, coffee and fruit, Morning Prayer, then coffee with MArgaret in town, a wee trip to W. B. Smith and Waitrose, home for lunch and an academic meeting, by then some odds and ends relative to my project toward articulating a chantry list for St Helen’s. Busy day.

Ran my two miles, fruit and coffee, and off to the church for Morning Prayer. Should pick up some groceries, and then home to read and study, and I have a student thesis to peer into.

I set out on my run this morning. It was a balmy 6° (after a spell of subzero temps), though the air was lightly seasoned with drizzle. I figured that a mist was easy enough to negotiate granted the appeal of a warmer atmosphere. The mist, however, turned out to be more like drizzler or even rain, and after about a third of a mile, I turned back. At least I got two-thirds of a mile in the metaphorical books.

Then off to St Nicolas’s for the 8:00 service, the first Mass I’ve said in donkey’s ears, which went well, all things considered. A cup of coffee and croissant in Costa in the square, then down to the river to pray at St Helen’s, which (once again) proceeded adequately. Both congregations have welcomed Margaret and me enthusiastically, and I’m cautiously confident that I can add something more than just clergy hours to parish life.

Now, however, it’s time to rest, perhaps even nap for a short while, before Evensong and home for dinner.

Sermon done, just before dinner. This is the first time two of the parish’s congregations will hear me preach, so the stakes are different from what they’d be if everyone already knew to expect to be bored.

…so I did run my short (~1.5 mi) route, short cause of my knee, then came home for coffee and hot breakfast. Since then I’ve been doing online errands to avoid finishing tomorrow’s sermon. That looks like the shoape of my whole day, unless I finish my sermon in a rush this afternoon.

Not really limping, nor really a circle, but I did make a very unambitious, very gentle jog along my short route. My knee is still feeling wobbly; the temperature was -4°; but I get uneasy if I skip two days in a row, lest I start getting lazy. Coffee and easy peelers, tea in bed for Margaret, a shower, and off to Morning Prayer.

I didn’t run this morning, partly because the temperature at running time was -5°, and partly because my knee situation got more wobbly and painful as the day wore on. I did walk to Morning Prayer, though, and into town with Margaret for coffee and pain au raisin. This afternoon relatively clear for reading, sermon writing, and various other projects.

I ran my short route again today on account of the -1° temperature, but the whole experience was coloured by my tweaked left knee. I didn’t notice an uneven step, a skid or a wobble — just, about a quarter mile into my run I felt my knee twinging with each step. I slowed down to a walk, tried to let the knee reset itself, and picked up the pace again, but the twinge kept coming back. I walked, then ran a few steps, then walked, then ran, the rest of my route till the knee started behaving again. Home, coffee and fruit, now off to Morning Prayer.

-3°, so I ran my shorter route, but I did run anyway. My fingers got a bit numb; no, they got prickly and painful, so I doubt I will run two days in a row at subzero temperatures. It’s only Celsius, so USians can look smug and point to Iowa temperatures, but I wouldn’t run in -25°F either. Coffee and fruit, about to head out to Morning Prayer, and then quite likely to a cafe in Abingdon. But which…?

I ran my two yesterday and today.Yesterday I then rushed to St Nicolas’s to observe the 8:00 service (that I’ll be celebrating next week), hurried home to have breakfast before arriving early for the 10:30 (I walked along but didn’t do anything importantly liturgical, but had time to watch the blocking for the service; again, I’ll be leading the main service at St Helen’s next week), then home for lunch, walked the dogs down by the Ock now that the water’s low enough, back to church for the Epiphany Lessons and Carols, Blessing of Families, and Epiphany Tea. This is a grand parish occasion, with a vast bring-and-share (the preponderance of which were baked sweet goods); everyone welcomed me, and a good number asked when my licensing service would be. Fr Charles has been announcing it frequently, but you know how words can just drift past your ears if you’re thinking about anything else.

Today, after my run, I had my coffee, cleaned up and went to church for Morning Prayer, picked up some grapes and crumpets for breakfast, talked biblical ethics with Margaret for a few minutes before she left for morning tea with a friend, and I settled in upstairs with the ladies. Today’s tasks are working on Sunday’s sermon and continuing my work on a chantry list for St Helen’s. I’m starting with visible memorials in the church, then will branch out to the churchyard, and when these are relatively complete will open it up for people from the contemporary congregation.

So, keeping occupied. Have to spend some time reading, too; I’d like to have read a book a week this year. That goal is complicated by reading academic articles (some are such a slog that their twenty or so pages should count as a book, but I still would rather read, you know, a book for it to count).

I slept late this morning — all the way to quarter after seven! — and when I woke up I was aghast, because I had planned to go to the 8:00 service at St Nicolas this week, to watch the way it goes, since I’m saying the 8:00 Mass next week. I was almost completely dressed and already planning to leave the house directly when it slowly began to dawn on me that today is Saturday, and that there was no pressure at all to get anyplace.

But I opted not to run, and instead said Morning Prayer and answered emails and started cooking breakfast. Then at noontime I wandered in to St Helen’s, where I walked through the way Mass is said there (different rite, different blocking). Home, and I had just come close to finishing lunch, when the dogs needed a walk….

Ran two miles (the Ock River was back down to recognisable channels, thank heaven) in 5°, up from -1°; fruit and coffee, Morning Prayer, and now settling in to do some reading.

Dave, that sounds like my scintillating scotomas, and my doctors haven’t been worried by them. They are a nuisance, and they seem as though they ought to be ominous, though. I have them at irregular intervals and have recorded the dates since 2017, in case that ever becomes relevant; last one was 6 December, I think. There was a long gap between January and December 2022, but a remarkable (to me) cluster on 2, 4, 6, and 9 July 2019.

I had forgotten how early in the year the anniversary of Aaron Swartz‘s death comes. As we begin to lose the elders of the earliest Web, I can’t forget the cruelty with which overambitious politically-motivated prosecutors crushed his spirit; his voice and insight would be a precious support among digital humanists, humane digerati, and against the hypercorporate use of technology to multiply the wealth of the billionaire caste.

https://akma.disseminary.org/2013/01/aaron-swartz/
https://akma.disseminary.org/2013/01/rememberaaron/
https://akma.disseminary.org/2014/05/remember-aaron/

I ran two miles, fruit and coffee breakfast; will clean up, go to Morning Prayer, head in to Oxford to lead a teaching session on how best to approach leading a tutorial, lunch, then an examiners’ meeting (have I ever mentioned that I hate marking?).

Dave Rogers appositely points to our family favourite film Mystery Men, and adds a link to an enthusiastic critical assessment of what I am accustomed to treating as yet another idiosyncratic feature of life with the Adams. Hail, the Mystery Men! Remember, ‘When you can balance a tack hammer on your head, you will head off your foes with a balanced attack.’