I don’t think Bill Watterson was referring to short-handed clergy life during Advent, but who knows? Historical probability isn’t the only criterion for interpretive aptness.
I’ve kept at my running, though my legs have only gotten good and loose one day this week, and my wind has been laboured most days. I have to remind myself that the point of the exercise is doing it, and at that I’ve been Olympic calibre. A lot of the week has been eaten up by working on special orders of service for the upcoming holy days. Our big day in January will be the Confirmation, Baptism, and Reception day mid-month, for which my colleague has already made up a booklet. I think I’m free of special service books till Ash Wednesday.
The time that wasn’t dedicated to service books has gone to admissions interviews for Oriel and to playing with ink. Interviews went very well, or at least as well as they can go when mediated by Teams rather than being done face to face. I’d look forward to working with any of the young people we interviewed, and especially the ones I cast my support to at the end of the day. We’ll know more about how this chapter turns out later.
The ink comes from an Inkvent Advent Calendar from Diamine inks: twenty-four tiny samples of exotic inks (shimmer, extra sheen, chameleon), with a special bottle for Christmas Day. So far the inks, pretty as some have been, aren’t as sparkly on my paper as they have been on others’ samples. I put this down to my not having the knack for writing with shimmery inks, and not having the sort of paper that shows them to advantage.
That’s a bit sad, but it’s useful knowledge; at least I won’t decide on sending an important note to His Majesty, intending that it be characterised by ‘extreme sheen’, only to discover too late that my pedestrian paper draws down the special qualities of the ink. I’ll see about slicker paper later on.