Hills of the North Rejoice .......

Day minus two to D Day.

Moving into a new house requires addressing previous occupant's likes and loves. 

We are dog owners but the notice in the back door indicated the existence of cats. 

To spare the dog’s blushes we removed the sign only to find behind it the remains of a fish …… a question of catacombs or who got the fish?

Last evening I audited my first Parochial Church Council (PCC) meeting in what seems like a thousand years.

This morning I left the somewhat inappropriately named Sunniside in a deluge of dark stormy rain at 6 15 a.m. to drive across to the Vicarage to await the delivery of a mattress for our new bed.

The delivery team were highly professional, extremely courteous even though the sat nav had done what sat navs do and I had to talk them down from Carterway Heads, like an air traffic controller, by mobile ‘phone.

The bed was both an eBay bargain and an eBay error of judgement.

King Size is good, especially for the older couple, it allows space to sleep undisturbed and comfortably through the night untroubled by knees, elbows or bad dreams. 

Super King size means a new mattress, new bedding, new Duvet, new sheets, looking again at the description on eBay of the new bed it is clear that it was accurately described as Super King size.

Hence my driving at 6 30 a.m. in driving rain through the wilds of Consett and Shotley for the delivery at 7 00 a.m. Whenever I do make an early start like that I am always aware of how many people start their day with such a commute. 

Indeed I did myself when I worked in Birmingham and I recall the horrendous traffic in Bedfordshire requiring me to cross the M1 before 7 10 a.m. in order to miss the build up of traffic that meant my 45 minute commute becoming an hour and a half..

The PCC was a revelation.

I recall my first PCC meeting in my first Parish in Manchester as a raw 29 year old. 

I put on my best suit and a nice shirt and tie and entered the room with a folder with minutes of the previous meeting, a set of accounts and a financial statement. 

I started the minute as precedent required with prayer, that was the only contribution I made which was not interrupted.

Every suggestion I made was rejected out of hand. 

I was criticised for allowing people to call me Geoff, Fr Hedley would not have allowed that. I soon discovered that the way we do things is the way things will be done. I went home and drank half a bottle of the Whiskey we kept for emergencies.

I attended my second PCC  wearing a full walking soutane with shoulder cape, what a transformation. Respectful, polite, cautiously co-operative the PCC members accepted all the suggestions that Father made.

I went home that evening and drank the other half of the bottle in quiet gratitude for Whippels who had made my cassock to measure.

Interestingly it still fits but I cannot imagine needing to wear it in Shotley Fields where I am clearly and firmly Geoff.

Afterwards I returned, not to the house for Whiskey, but to the pub for a pint with the Lay Reader and the Churchwarden.

Great beginnings, early days, but positive signs and the house continues to welcome us as we prepare to ready ourselves for pitching our tent in these new parts, with new friends and partners in ministry in this glorious part of the world, where the Hills of the North rejoice.



Comments

  1. Unknown25 November 2018 at 08:17

    Geoff, as you shall always be known as here at The Snods, will always be grateful that you were shown the way to the vicarage and our church. Can't wait to see you, dogs and hens, cosily ensconced in the parish. Masses of warm welcoming hugs to you and Elizabeth, and thank you for your wonderful blog that entertains and makes us feel closer to you... Best of all love and blessings in your new home and new life here in the wilds of the Northumberland/Durham countryside. Sue, Michael and Edward Thompson x

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Are you sitting comfortably then I will begin ........

  Do you remember  Listen with Mother  the programme always opened with the phrase "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin".   My memory of it brings back strong emotions as I recall as a young child how the ritual involved a sense of snuggling down on my mother’s knee to hear the story being read.   In our psalm today, psalm 34 we are invited to say with the psalmist at verse 8, Happy are those who take refuge in him.   The idea of taking refuge involves quite literally hiding yourself in God or in your parents love.   Which is why I found myself transported back in time to the memory of hiding myself in my Mother’s protection as I was asked ‘Are you sitting comfortably?’   This image of a small child wrapped in it’s Mother’s arms, protected, warm, loved, the sense of being happy, as the psalmist invites us to imagine the possibility of taking refuge in God.   Of being protected, warm and loved which brings with it a deep sense of cont...
Read more

To Theophilus friend of God ......

  People who like quizzes might prefer me to begin with a question such as: Who wrote a quarter of the New Testament? The answer is of course St Luke. Luke the Evangelist wrote both the Gospel that bears his name but also the Acts of the Apostles. As an evangelist Luke was writing from the perspective of a historian about events that he had not witnessed personally. However his writing in the Acts of the Apostles suggests that he was describing activities in which he was involved. Luke indicates that he was not an eyewitness to the events described in his Gospel he does 'repeatedly' use the word 'we' in describing the missionary journeys that he presumably undertook with Paul and which he describes in the Acts of the Apostles. In Colossians Paul writes: Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.  A near contemporary historian, Epiphanious, suggests that Luke could have been one of the seventy we read about in the Gospel set for the Feast of St Luke. As ...
Read more

Conviviality and a personal history .........

  There are many synonyms:  friendliness, geniality, affability, amiability, congeniality, good humour, cordiality, warmth, warm-heartedness, good nature, sociability, gregariousness, clubbability, companionability, cheerfulness, cheeriness, good cheer, joviality, jollity, gaiety, liveliness, festivity, bonhomie. And one rather sad antonym: unfriendliness.   In interdiac the definition of conviviality has three elements drawn from an understanding of the social and community aspects of life in the Iberian Peninsula where Moslems were able to live freely and openly with their Jewish and Christian neighbours.   The conviviality of life in 19 th  Century Paris with its free and unconstrained conversation.   The work and writings of Ivan Illich in which he described the transformation of relationships between people and their environment and technology.   In Manchester in the early 1970’s I worked in an inner-city environment which was scheduled ...
Read more