Month: May 2025

Yesterday morning after my sermon at St Nic’s — still during the service — I felt as though something had clobbered me. I was wiped out, and just barely made it down to the Faith Forum, left early and went home to lie down and rest. I dozed, napped, rested, through the afternoon, and in the evening just had enough appetite to drink some of the smoothie Margaret got at the grocery store. I went to bed at 9:00 and slept through to 5:30….

I mostly walked this morning. My hips and knees were resistant, stiff and rusty. Shower, another cup of coffee, toast, finish sermon, Mattins at St Nic’s, Faith Forum at the Parish Centre. I’m hoping my legs limber up over the course of the day and work agreeably tomorrow morning.

Good run this morning. With a view to warming up for Monday morning’s run, I broke the two miles into three roughly 2/3 mile segments, with brief walking intervals; I want to keep limber and to keep a good pace for my running intervals, but not to risk too hard a push on any run. I am confident that I can dial up the intensity Monday morning, so I’ve been trying to optimise the non-pushing baseline. We’ll see how that works out. Since I know nearly nothing about athletics and kinesiology, the odds on being generally correct and on being catastrophically wrong are about even.

Yesterday’s conference — the morning half that I attended — was fine. While I was in Oxford, Margaret handed the ladies over for grooming. We’ll try to get a good ‘after’ photo today, so that we can post the contrasting images for the Small Dog Appreciation Society.

We started watching the Jon Hamm vehicle Your Friends & Neighbours, but turned it off after two episodes; it seemed to unselfconsciously smug about the wealthy lifestyle the characters take for granted, and Jon Hamm’s character gave us no trace of a reason to sympathise with him. No, that’s wrong; he’s kind to his sister, and they seem to have come out of a very emotionally-cold parental household. Still, the ‘only the wealthy matter’ worldview that expects us to sympathise with a man who has to subsist on sums that boggle our imagination just wore on us as we watched. Too much shocking presumption, not enough humane core.

Good run, pleasant weather, coffee and fruit, Morning Prayer (followed quickly by phone check at the Parish Centre) and bus journey to Oxford for our annual meet-up with Cambridge Biblical Studies for a day of PG student papers and conversations with our colleagues from the Other Place.

Another good run this morning — I’m suspicious about what this implies about Monday’s Bannister Mile. I anticipate all the most baneful minor afflictions of my running experience. Ah, well, so long as I don}t finish dead last. Coffee and fruit, shower and dress, Morning Prayer, and I think I’ll start my working morning at public office hours at R&R.

Yesterday I had a good run, worked up a homily, hot breakfast, showered and dressed, Morning Prayer, Holy Communion at St Helen’s, Staff Meeting, then slumped home for lunch. Took up email and odds and ends from the meeting, worked on my article for ATR, Margaret made an early dinner, then to the Parish Centre for a wedding consultation (Lovely, sweet couple — I do love the marrying part of this vocation), and a Deanery Meeting at St Helen’s. I got home at 9:30, cleaned the kitchen, and so to bed….