Month: May 2026

I took this morning easy, beginning with a jog-walk for my morning miles. My joints were especially grumpy this morning, though I’m not sure whether they actually do feel different or whether I just notice them more when I’m moving slowly. Coffee and hot breakfast, another cup of coffee because it is just so satisfying, some digital odds and ends. An easy start to what I hope will be a restorative day.

Ran my morning miles at another ten seconds closer to my late April plateau. Coffee, fruit, shower, dash to Oxford to agree marks with a colleague, back to Abingdon to leave my academic gear and pick up my clerical gear, over to St Michael’s for a wedding (a very sweet wedding) which went marvellously, then back home to collapse in a heap. I’m knackered, but on everyone’s account it was a great service.

My morning run today shaved more than a minute off Wednesday’s, so I’m settling back closer to my pre-Bannister plateau zone. Coffee, fruit, Morning Prayer, home for second coffee and toast, and marking and homily-writing.

Good night’s sleep, slow but satisfactory run (not even trying for speed), coffee, fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, some groceries, home, back to church for Chapter Meeting.

I got a good night’s sleep after an evening devoted to resolving a security problem with a bank account (the kind of security problem that you definitely don’t want to put off) (honestly, forgers these days are hardly even trying, though corruption in general is so slipshod that I can see standards slipping across the spectrum of felonies). Got up, walk/jogged my morning miles, joints and sinews suggesting that they prefer not to be called upon to pursue sudden intense intervals of exertion such as powered my Bannister Mile yesterday. That’s okay, I don’t expect anything like that for a year at least.

Home for coffee and fruit, shower, Morning Prayer, then off to public office hours at R&R, home for lunch and a New Testament teaching staff meeting, and further adventures in pension-activation, wedding homily preparation, and so on.

I see that Alan Jacobs has been reading The Dark Bible, which I also am in the midst of. I’ll be interested to see what he has to say; my first impressions are mostly very favourable.

I got up and made coffee this morning, ate some fruit, dressed for running, and made my way to the Stratton Way bus stop to catch a bus to Oxford. I knew that since today is a bank holiday, there would be fewer buses; I did not know just how very few there would be. I had allowed an hour and a half for the wait and the ride combined, but when I arrived at the stop, a sign indicated that my usual bus (the X3) wouldn’t arrive for 37 minutes. That just seemed far too long to me, and with the duration of the trip in to Oxford would cut seriously into my time for registering and preparing for the run — and that’s assuming that the bus showed up at all (of which I was less confident than I’d liked to be). Thus, when a bus to Osney Island (a bit west of the rail station) arrived and was about to leave, I impulsively jumped aboard, reasoning that it was likely that my trip duration + walking time to Christ Church would still be less than waiting for the X3, and at least I knew that the 44 to Osney Island was actually there and moving. In this, I reasoned correctly; by the time I disembarked, the X3 was only just leaving Stratton Way. On my way to the registration booth, I passed a girl and her dad by the rail station, and the young ’un pointed up at me and said, ‘Dad, look! Santa Claus!’ which was gratifying to this old coot (though I think I make a more svelte Santa than most). Registration went smoothly, and I was ready to go with an hour to spare.

The Bannister Mile itself went smoothly, though I had foolishly signed up for the ‘Family Wave’, thinking that there would be fewer serious runners speeding past me at disheartening rates. I had not, however, reckoned with the number of six-to-eight year olds who would go fairly slowly, and with no sense whatever of their position in the running lane (since they were usually with parents, often with siblings, in phalanxes, they made it extremely difficult to find clear routes to move ahead). (I’m not sure I’ve ever used ‘phalanxes’ in discursive prose before, so that’s a win right there.) Once I moved past most of the slow family groups — the families that run regularly who breezed along (and ran back from the finish to the start just for fun) zipped past me — I kept to what was for me a moderately good pace, and I’m very confident that I shave fifteen seconds or so off last year’s time. [Later: seventeen seconds, to be exact.]

Now I’m just worn to a frazzle from all the walking and running, so I will sit here for a while, then shower, then tackle some task-demands. But the mile is in the books.

I ran to a very good pace this morning. I’ll take things easy tomorrow and Sunday, with a view to staying limber but not over-doing before Monday. Coffee, fruit, shower, Morning Prayer (and check messages), back for coffee and toast. And so on…

I’ve been reticent about saying this in public (though voluble in personal conversation), but now that the season of Annual Meetings is over I feel free to say: I will retire from my parish ministry post here in Abingdon Parish at the end of my licensing period in January 2027.
The Parish is in sturdy health, and numbers are growing. Our new (familiar) Rector Jen Brown has been in post since October and has settled firmly into her role. We’ll have (heaven permitting) a new Team Vicar sometime in the autumn.
Half-time church posts are notoriously closer to full-time, but the two consecutive interregnums in the parish have taken that axiom to an extreme. I’ve had to struggle to get any reading or writing done, and I have at least one big project I don’t want to put off any longer.
I’ll continue to tutor for Oriel College as long as Bill Wood will put up with me, and Fr Jonathan Jong has enlisted me for PTO ministry at St Mary Magdalen Church in Oxford. Margaret & I hope to find a house in Headington. We’re healthy and happy, and want to enjoy our time together while we can.
I have no desire for retirement festivities or farewell parties, *but* — on 5 December we will observe the fortieth anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood with a Commemoration of Clement of Alexandria at St Helen’s, Abingdon, to which all and any will be welcomed!