Up at 12.25am

Yesterday, I went back to bed at 7.30am but was up again at 9.15am. I never thought an ear infection could be so debilitating; I have gone deaf in my left ear (I hope it is just a temporary thing) caused by all the rubbish that is forming in my ear (I hope), I feel so lob-sided and the pain is excruciating, fortunately it is not there all the time but when it comes on all I can do is lay down and take some pain killers. I thought I would give my ear a clean yesterday but it is so painful just to touch and I couldn’t even get an ear bud in as it is so swollen. I just had to cancel all engagements today; Morning Prayer, two assemblies and the AGM of The Friends of South Lopham.

I thought at least I would be able to do some of the parish admin work but I can’t even concentrate for five minutes at the moment. It must be serious because this is now the third day without any food; I just don’t have any appetite at the moment, although I must admit to half fancying a MacDonald’s Milkshake last night, I am drinking plenty but my face and jaw are so swollen that chewing & smiling would be painful.

The first thing I read on the BBC’s News Site this morning was that ”Doctors have been told to cut antibiotics usage” The guidelines published by N.I.C.E. say that GPs should defer from prescribing antibiotics straight away for ear infections, sore throats, sinus trouble, and coughs and colds in adults and children. They say it could save the N.H.S. millions every year.

I think that since just before Christmas I have been on bucket loads of antibiotics for about 3 ½ months, I just hope these newest ones kick in soon. I have never liked taking antibiotics at anytime as I’ve always thought they would bring about the destruction of humanity far quicker than any atom bomb. Unfortunately antibiotics are now endemic in our food chain; if you eat meat or any farmed fish they will certainly have been pumped full of antibiotics at some point. Many clinicians believe that our overuse of antibiotics have helped the superbugs to develop.

The other thing in the news that tickled my fancy this morning was the protestor who tried to glue himself to the Prime Minister; I’ve put something on the Benefice Forum about that.

God be with you-keep smiling-I really can’t at the moment-Rob.

Up at 11.56pm

A whole day off yesterday, that is a rarity, it happens about every couple of months. As I thought yesterday this ear infection has now become so painful that I must go to the doctors. I went back to bed about 5.45am but was up again about 7.45am. The ear infection is not just an irritation every now and again there is a sharp stabbing pain which is just so powerful; I’m feeling very dizzy and unsure on my feet.

Managed to get an appointment in the morning and saw Dr. Hulme, which was good because he dealt originally with my cellulitis. As he said I’m being attacked at both ends. Another pile of antibiotics prescribed, some anti-fungal eardrops and some cream to ease the cellulitis on my leg; I’m falling to pieces!

Returned home, didn’t feel like doing anything so I went and watched the cricket; well I dozed on and off watching the cricket. Jan finally woke me up about 2.30pm because an old friend R is coming round to see us. I must admit it was the last thing I felt like doing but I’ve put him off or not been here when he’s called so I felt I must see him.

We had an interesting chat; R has certainly been on a spiritual journey since our days in theological college in the 80’s and early 90’s. He was ordained in The Church in Wales as I was and served in the Diocese of Llandaff (Cardiff area) which is very high church. He served in a couple of parishes and then when the C-i-W decided to ordain women he left; by his own admission he didn’t do it the right way, he left then told his bishop! He moved to Scotland and he and his wife divorced. He was then received into the Roman Catholic Church and stayed there for a couple of years until he realised that wasn’t his spiritual home either. He then explored the Orthodox Church first in Greece and then in Russia living in both countries. After this he was received into the Russian Orthodox Church after his re-baptism (a heresy in the Western Church) met a Russian Doctor and married her, they tried to settle in Scotland but they wouldn’t recognise her medical training so she went back to Russia where R hopes to join her in September. In the meantime he has lived in Czechoslovakia to train as a teacher and now lives in Diss with his brother whilst he gets the relevant paperwork together.

There was much talking about old colleagues and between us and Jan trying to work out where they were and what they were doing; although we didn’t have a lot of success at this, even with the aid of an old college photograph. R hadn’t been in touch with anyone and I have more or less lost contact with the C-i-W. What was clear is that perhaps I’m in the minority of those who were ordained at the same time, what with those who had died, those who had run off with parishioners, those who’d had breakdowns and those who had left the ministry for one reason or another. There were some very sad stories we talked about.

The trouble with this work is that when you’re training as we did in St. Michael’s and All Angels’ Theological College in Llandaff, you are together as a community because you live, eat, work, study and worship together (well R didn’t because he was one the few ordinands who lived outside the college) and then when you’re ordained all of a sudden work becomes all consuming; the first couple of years as a curate are not so bad, there is still some space for a social life. The real change comes when you become an incumbent, it is a very different job and all of a sudden everything hangs on you, any real social life goes out of the window, especially if you have a young family. The parish becomes your social life; it may not seem too bad to a parishioner to have to go to a social function once in a while but when you multiply that by five add PCC meetings, various other committees, school governors etc etc, it doesn’t leave much time for anything else.

When we finished Jan took him home and I went back to feeling very sorry for myself and feeling how boring I was compared to R.

Jan had supper, I hadn’t eaten anything all day, I felt so rotten and I’m not sure I can chew anything because my face is all swollen. We watched speedway, well Jan did, I didn’t see one race, I was just in a sort of comatose state drifting in and out of sleep.

Went to bed about 10.45pm and because my ear is still so painful up again just over an hour later. I don’t know what I’m going to do tomorrow (Tuesday) because I’m supposed to be at two leaver’s assemblies but I know that if I’m feeling this I won’t be able to go.

God be with you-keep smiling-I can’t at the moment because it hurts-Rob.

Up at 1.02am

My ear infection has returned with a wallop; it seems incredible that with all the antibiotics I’ve been taking lately that it’s come back. It’s driving me mad, not only is it painful but it feels itchy right inside my ear and I feel lob sided; I guess I’ll have to go back to the doctors this week, I dislike that immensely!

Morning services went okay other than feeling so tired and rotten with this ear. Took my time going home as I took some pictures of the scarecrows in North Lopham, the pictures can be seen here, arrived back at the Rectory about 12 Noon.

Had our usual Sunday lunch and then some deep meditation. Jan woke me about 3.30pm which meant that I’d let A & J down, I promised them I’d be down at Mere’s Mouth to support the Churches Together Event, can’t blame Jan only myself because I didn’t remind her of it, I feel awful about the whole thing, I hate letting people down. I never went back into North Lopham either, so I feel I let them down as well. I’ll have to send a grovelling email.

Bressingham Evensong, I really love Evensong and I enjoyed tonight’s service, I thought the preacher was particularly good and Adrian introduced a new Nunc Dimittis chant which was quite uplifting and the hymns were good. I took a few pictures of the church both inside and out and they can be seen here.

Once again I wasn’t very charitable or Christian towards one of my flock, I try really hard not to do it but I am finding the particular person annoying and demanding at the moment. I am really struggling in loving this person at the moment!

Got back to The Rectory just after 8pm and had a phone call from my friend R and we’re meeting up tomorrow; I’m sort of looking forward to it but I’m not a great one for looking back at things and I guess we’re going to be kicking over the traces a bit. It was a good job that he could only make it in the afternoon; it was really the only free slot this week. I commented to Jan this job is no good if you want a social life, it really is all consuming either that or I am not managing my time very efficiently; I suspect it is a bit of both.

As soon as I finished supper, I fell asleep only to be awakened by Jan at 11pm telling me it was time for bed; at least I’ve a whole day off other than fitting in a trip to the doctors and meeting R. Ca la vie!

God be with you-keep smiling-I am-Rob.

Up at 12.32am

Treated myself to going back to bed about 5.30am, it really does make all the difference. Although I’d finished all the weekly admin yesterday it still all needed to be printed; we’ve been having a little problem with our two laser printers just lately (our set up has a black & white duplex and a colour laser and a multifunction inkjet), the problem has been with the black & white duplex laser, we’ve had three reconditioned drums in it and the printing is getting a bit mucky with ghosting on it. We’ve tried cleaning it inside to no avail but I think it is more likely to be the toner cartridge; I bought two particularly cheap reconditioned toners and they appear to be leaking a little. The new ones cost over £55 each but the reconditioned ones can be as little as £18 each which must be good for my pocket (we use 12 plus a year) and also for the planet. I read recently that printer ink & toner is more expensive per ounce than gold!

Had an unusual treat, a relaxed breakfast together with a vicar’s wife I know, the odd Saturday is the only chance we get to do that, which is a great shame because I enjoy it so much. Then we found we had a puncture; we’ve had this car 11 months, it had 2,000 miles on the clock, it now has about 13,000 and since we’ve had it we’ve had two brand new tyres and two or three repaired and guess what it had to be another new tyre (just a mere £122)! Normally you would expect to get around 24,000 miles on a tyre, so that has been some expensive motoring. Our car only has four wheels, yes, I know all cars only have four wheels but we have no spare, we have a fancy compressor and some special foam which is supposed to temporarily fix punctures. Is that just misfortune, the roads are getting worse or the tyres becoming inferior; we certainly don’t buy the cheap tyres?

Eventually got round to doing the normal Saturday delivery run about 4.30pm (if you are a regular reader you will know how much I dislike the Saturday delivery run). We got to North about 5pm just in time for the BBQ but we didn’t stay. It was quite strange with two BBQs going in the church porch and everyone eating inside-no one’s fault, just the weathers. I must admit I had a thought come into my mind of Jesus clearing the Temple of BBQs! Please don’t think this is a criticism, it is just my warped sense of humour which quite often is akin to Monty Pythonesque. I don’t think many church people have ever been in tune with my humour, well why should they (confession-I found The Life of Brian funny-surely that is an excommunication sin-did you know that The Life of Brian is still banned by many councils from being shown in public cinemas-there was a story only yesterday here). It was a shame we didn’t have more time in North because I would have liked to have had a good look round and got some pictures of the scarecrows to put on the web; there certainly were some good ones and some copies of the ones I saw on the net when I was doing some research into scarecrows the other day. That’s the good thing about the internet you can do research on all sorts of things, it sounds better than playing Stikcricket!

We were in a bit of a rush because; well if you’ve been reading the blog this week you’ll know why. We managed to do our ten deliveries, set one of the churches up and fill up with petrol in about two hours which is pretty good but only about average, it can take as long as three hours to do the deliveries. I often ponder; I’m quite good at pondering, what will happen when we go? Actually I’m hoping to die in situ, why because it is the greatest and quickest route to sainthood in the Anglican Church; you can be the worst vicar there ever was (I’m doing my best) but if you die in harness, so to speak, that is all forgiven and you become the best vicar a parish has ever had, the other way is to stay in a parish for about 54 years, everyone may wish you would move on but you become a legend amongst parishioners they can’t actually remember anything good you’ve done but the fact you’ve been here for 54 years means you must have done something. Today a vicar staying in a parish for five years is quite good; we seem to have adopted the Methodist and Salvation Army way of moving on about every five years. I have a theory (another good Monty Python line) why it is five years; it is always easy to start something, what is much harder is to maintain it and if you move every five years, you can start a lot of things but never have to maintain them (one of the best tests of any ministry is what remains after you’ve gone). Those who are destined for higher things move with even more frequency. Being an ex-policeman with still a fair degree of cynicism in me and because we used to see a lot of this rapid promotion in the police means that I understand this in the fact that they daren’t let these vicars stay in position for too long in case they damage the parishes; it used to be called the law of bubbles-the less substance a person has the quicker they will rise to the surface and the less damage they will do the nearer the surface they are. I’m sure most bishops are very good but when you look through their CVs some of them don’t have much parish experience. Now I know that I am definitely damned today, liking The Life of Brian and criticising Bishops all in the same blog-excommunication here I come.

When I was in Brecon, there was an Ursuline Convent in the town where I occasionally taught (some girls were foreign borders who were Anglicans). The nuns who ran it were from the order of Ursulines, Roman Catholic nuns who follow St. Angela Merici. They are a teaching order who are pretty tough. I remember sitting having a cup of tea with the Mother Superior and saying to her; “If the Pope knew you were entertaining me and letting me teach your girls, he would shoot you.” She coolly replied, “I wouldn’t worry about that Rob,” in a lovely lilting Irish accent “He’d run out of ammunition a long time before he ever got to me!”

I’ve always found that members of religious orders, men and women have the greatest sense of humour, quite irreverent at times; I guess it comes because they are at peace with themselves and God. It seems to me that most Christians, especially Anglicans, are continually beating themselves up because of their feeling of unworthiness. God loves you as you are, after all he created you, so why not begin by loving and accepting yourself just as God loves and accepts you; you know once you can do that it makes loving and accepting other people so much easier.

Supper at 7.30pm and The Speedway World Cup Final, I wonder if they have speedway in heaven-strike three I’m definitely out, now I’m criticising heaven. I don’t want to be a little cherub playing on a harp sitting on a cloud!

The meeting was pretty lacklustre because of the conditions in Vojens (Denmark) although it did get quite exciting at one point between Poland & Denmark; because I know you are champing at the bit to know this, the result; Denmark 49, Poland 46, Sweden 39, Australia 21. It was a long meeting and both Jan & I were so excited at times that we fell asleep!

Bed at 10.30pm. I hope to speak to you again tomorrow but I could be struck down by lightening or even worse a Bishop (that’s what they have those crosiers (crooks) for, for striking down errant clergy).

God be with you-keep smiling-I am-Rob. (my spellchecker has had a field day with this blog, it’s had to go and lie down in a darkened room).

Up at 1.54am

I did surprisingly well in Morning Prayer yesterday, only faltering in the latter stages; I have to admit that I was helped by some loud banging, which I thought was coming from the clock tower. When we finished Morning Prayer we came out to find two people on the roof-Reg didn’t mess about; “You nicking our lead again!” Fortunately they weren’t, they were mending it, although why no one hadn’t told me, after all, I am allegedly in charge (I’m not really, it’s only a malicious rumour that surfaces sometimes, especially when things go wrong). It didn’t matter that we were saying Morning Prayer; mind you perhaps this was a way devised to keep me awake in Morning Prayer ala Prodder (see entry on the 16^th July).

Paid a quick visit to a family going on holiday on Saturday (lucky things) before returning home to the usual Friday parish admin. I finished it quite quickly and I’d even done the Cockcrow copy the day before (only a week and a day late-sorry P & L). Something’s in life give you a warm tingle and one of them happened to me in Roydon as I was leaving my visit. There were five people stood at a bus stop and when they saw me they all waved enthusiastically at me; I only knew one of them but when I stopped and had a chat with them, you would’ve thought I was a long lost brother.

At lunchtime Jan & I went up to North Lopham; Jan installed her Scarecrow in the pulpit (the one that the vicar she knows quite well suggested she make for the Scarecrow Festival) you can see pictures here. I went to the school and picked up the equipment for tonight’s big event.

We returned home for lunch about 2.45pm and both promptly fell asleep; I think we’re both suffering from sleep deprivation at the moment. Left for the big event about 5.40pm.

The big event-The rounder’s match between the Young ‘Uns and the Wrinklies at Fersfield Church Meadow; we were both pleasantly surprised at the numbers-28 players and a fair number of supporters and spectators. You can see a full report, result and pictures here. The match finished about 8.15pm just in time before the heavens opened. I’m sure this event and the setting up and re-fencing of Fersfield Church Meadow has done a great deal to strengthen the bond between church and village. We hope to do more events, including a Fersfield Olympics throughout the summer.

Because we’ve been so busy of late, there was no food in the house, so we had to go shopping at Tescos; we got back to the Rectory and had supper about 9.40pm. We watched a DVD, well slept through a DVD and went to bed about 12.15am. A busy and long but satisfying day.

God be with you-keep smiling-I am-Rob.

Up at 12.51am

Didn’t do very well in Morning Prayer yesterday, the only bit I really did stay awake for was the prayers and that was only because I was doing them!

Back to the Rectory to pick up Jan and then back out to the far reaches of North Lopham for the Thursday Communion; only Jan & I and the two Js today but even so it was a lovely relaxed service, our discussion was about how our faith has helped us in difficult times in our lives.

In my ministry there have been certain places where I have felt more comfortable than others. In my last parish (Pontypool) there was a lady I used to visit who used to make me feel really at home. I once visited her when I was really tired (not that that’s a very common occurrence only just about every day of my life) and she told me to take my shoes off and put my feet up on the sofa and have a rest; of course I didn’t but there aren’t many homes where you feel as if you are part of the family; but J’s is one of those homes.

Returned to The Rectory for lunch then off to Roydon for an unusual service; A Thanksgiving For A Life of someone who is still alive. I’ve had some mixed feelings about this service but as I’ve got closer to it I’ve become more relaxed about it and in the end was actually looking forward to it. I suppose many clergy wouldn’t have entertained it; but I do like to try new things and in many ways it would be nicer to have such a service before someone died rather than as we usually have it after they’ve died.

It was a nice relaxed informal service which I like to think is my forte. It was the first time I’d met P and she wasn’t a bit like I’d imagined her to be, I’d only spoken to her on the phone before yesterday and I’d built up a mental image of her. There was only a dozen of us there; but that didn’t matter I think it sort of made it a more intimate and relaxed service. Everyone seemed to enjoy the service and there was a very real air of worship and thanksgiving and afterwards we shared some good fellowship in the parish room. I feel really pleased when I see people relaxed and hear them laughing and being themselves rather than the churchy get togethers when people are really trying hard to be something they’re not. Even Jan managed to relax and sat on the knee of her friend the vicar (I must admit I did feel a little bit jealous); pictures can be seen here.

One thing I forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog was that at the South Lopham Coffee Morning someone asked who Jan’s friend the vicar was? Well, I just refused to name him; he’s caused us so much extra work just lately!

Back home just before 5pm, both Jan & I have been tired all day; Jan is not a good sleeper but unlike me she tries to stay in bed. I did suggest to her that if she got up we could both go and watch TV and I’m sure that we would both end up asleep because that is what normally happens when we do sit down to watch TV together! Jan wouldn’t sit down but of course the vicar she knows quite well did and when Jan woke him up he didn’t know where he was or what day it was, that’ll serve him right.

We both sat down to watch the run-offs to The World Speedway Cup Final and at least Team GB tried this time and at one time were leading the meeting but in the end Sweden and Poland were too strong for them and along with Russia were eliminated from the competition (Sweden 53, Poland 50, GB 36, Russia 17). The final on Saturday looks as if it will be quite a ding dong affair. Once again, the vicar who Jan knows quite well suggested that we go to the BBQ at N. Lopham instead-who does he think he is-he should mind his own business!

Bed just after 10pm both utterly exhausted and still saying “Thank You” to each other; you will have had to have been at the service at Roydon to understand why.

God be with you-keep smiling-I am-Rob and Thank You for reading this blog.

Up at 1.04am

Very nearly got through Morning Prayer without falling asleep, it was only at the end of the prayers.

The website providers were down for a long time yesterday morning so I didn’t get the blog posted until about 9.30am.

Over to South Lopham for the Coffee Morning managed to pass Jan on the way. It was a good morning, a good number of people there and in the end we made £200 which was very good for a couple of hours and I was very pleased for Jan because she’d worked so hard. I managed to get around and spoke to just about everyone. The tombola was quite successful and Jan managed to keep the best prize until last which meant she sold all the tickets. She assured me she didn’t cheat it just worked out like that. In the first parish we were in charge of, we were a bit naive and we thought it was wonderful how the bottle of scotch remained unclaimed until all the tickets were brought. After the fete was finished we said how fortunate it was that the bottle of scotch was there until the end, when one of the ladies let the cat out of the bag;”That was no accident, vicar, we just didn’t put the winning ticket into the end!” We couldn’t believe it and it was the beginning of an education into tricks of the fete. We don’t do things like that we like everything to be open and above board.

One thing Jan and I both don’t like, is having to take things back from Coffee Mornings & Fetes etc, we would rather give things away at the end than take them home. This normally upsets everyone because when someone asks us how much something is, we normally say make us an offer (which we always take). This is probably going to be the first thing that upsets people today; nearly all our ladies like to price things and it would be fair to say that some of those prices are a bit on the high side. I know people are selling things for a good cause but greed is greed for whatever reason. Yesterday there was some produce left so as usual I auctioned it off. We got to one item and I said; “Who’ll start me off on 50p?” when a voice piped up saying; ”If you sell it for that, I’m taking it home!” Fortunately the bidding rose rapidly to £2.50 which happened to be 50p over the marked price anyway! Some years ago one of our churches decided to have a Coffee Morning in St. Mary’s Diss and it was all going rather well but near the end the marvellous cake stall we had was still there largely unsold (mainly, because people had overpriced things so much, no one was interested), so I suggested that I took the stall outside onto the pavement. Unknown to anyone else except Jan, I took all the price tags off and started to sell them at no reasonable offer refused. I sold out within 10 minutes and could have easily sold the same again several times over and interestingly enough some people gave me more than was on the original price labels. People would rather have taken their cakes home unsold than sell them less than the mark up price. We added about £50 to value of the coffee morning!

Something that is creeping into our events and especially in the raffles is to pre-award the prizes, so if you get first prize in the raffle you get the one marked first and not the one you choose. I’m told that it is supposed to save time, personally I don’t see it. It came to a crunch last year at one of our events when this was introduced and a little girl told me that she’d love to win the toy bunny but when her number was called she was proudly given a tin of mushy peas and the very next number was an adult who won the bunny. I’m afraid I wasn’t going to let that happen so I stepped in and forced an exchange. I was told afterwards that the person running the raffle was so upset that they weren’t going to do the raffle again; I couldn’t let that happen either so I spoke to the person and pointed out to them that the little girl was desperately upset and fortunately they saw sense. I do wonder about church people sometimes; I know we are always chasing money but if we can’t do it in a fair way who can!

While I’m on the subject another thing that irritates me (you can tell which side of the bed I got out on this morning-that’s not true because I can only get of bed on the one side-even if I could and I’d like to I don’t think Jan would appreciate me crawling over her in the middle of the night-are vicars allowed to say they sleep with their wives?) is the cost of tickets. When I first came here the four parishes made a deal with us that whatever event there was we would be given free tickets because everyone expected us to go to all events and four tickets soon mount up. That hasn’t always been adhered to and one parish in particular has always charged us; in any case we’ve nearly always made an appropriate donation (usually the cost of the tickets-so we might as well have been charged in the first place). This is not the thing that irritates me it is the cost; we’ve got an event soon where tickets are £7 and one that was arranged later in the year where they are £10, when the last figure was challenged the reply was that it is perfectly acceptable! Acceptable to whom, families with children, people on pensions, people on benefits, I don’t think so. It is funny because I hear in both churches about criticisms about the lack of families and young people; in both churches it would cost a family of four £28 and £40 respectively to go to those events! In my humble opinion all children should have free tickets to these events and there should be some sort of concessionary ticket at about half the price. I’m sorry if I’ve upset anyone who reads my blog but I was under the impression that charity was one of the key points of Christianity-I know that sounds a bit radical but then perhaps we ought to read The Letter of James or even The Sermon on The Mount!.

Rant over, rest of the day spent desperately trying to catch up on paperwork, Cockcrow still not done and The Herald to be done by the end of the week plus services and the usual weekly admin; perhaps I ought to get up a bit earlier (now, now, that was a bit catty-vicars are not meant to be catty are they?).

Even though the wedding interview I was supposed to have last night was cancelled, we still didn’t have supper until 9.30pm.

The vicar that Jan knows quite well has suggested she make a scarecrow for North Lopham’s Scarecrow festival; I wish he’d keep his nose out of our business, especially as he never does anything to help!

Bed about 11pm; an interesting day to look forward to tomorrow.

God be with you-keep smiling-I am-Rob.

Up at 2.08am with a thumping headache! I got up to 52 emails this morning; I was please to see that I had inherited several billion dollars in Nigeria which meant that that I could afford have several parts of my body extended or enlarged as several emails offered me and that I had no end of free offers and security checks on my account numbers of several different Bank Accounts, some of which I didn’t know I had. I must check my spam filter perhaps I could buy a better one with the money I’ve just inherited.

Almost managed to stay awake during Morning Prayer; I do try but I normally falter during the prayers. I believe I let out a little squeal during the prayers, I dreamt I did anyway and Jan says I often do when I’m asleep. I think it startled Reg but I added a few coughs to make it sound as if I was clearing my throat. Perhaps I could pass it off as a moment of Divine Rapture!

In ancient times a monk was appointed to wander among the other monks saying their offices (their daily prayers-Matins or Mattins-very early morning, Lauds-early morning quite often followed by The Mass or Communion, Terce-mid morning, Sext-midday, None-mid afternoon, Vespers-evening, Compline-night-most clergy now follow the pattern of Morning & Evening Prayer as we promise in our ordination) and especially in Matins which would said at about 4am anyone who was found asleep would be given a good prod! Perhaps we ought to employ someone to give me a good prod-it would result in me dropping all my books, which I am quite capable of without prodding and the likelihood of me falling off the pew, which I’m sure would be highly amusing for everyone with the possible exception of me, until everyone realised that they had to pick me up which would make me laugh!

I hope you realise that this is very un-clergy-like for me to tell you things like this but this is how it is and my diaries have always carried warts ‘n’ all. In my private diaries I reveal even more candid confessions but Jan has banned me on the pain of death from publishing such things-probably a good job. I wonder if in about 400 years when some church historian uncovers these works will publish them with an erudite title like “A walk with God” by Father Rob more like “How I slept through Morning Prayer” or “A sleep walk with God”-I don’t think so.

Assembly at St. Andrew’s; congratulated them on their performance the night before and got them to sing the finale again and told them about Swithun, whose day it was yesterday and it fitted in with our term’s theme on humility.

Anybody who says that SATS test have no effect on children should have experienced yesterday morning not just in St. Andrew’s School but in any school around the country. There was real emotion shown not only by children but also by teachers in the elation of getting better than expected grades or the depression of not doing as well as expected. The frightening thing is that this year the SATS results have not all been delivered on time; schools have experienced no results, unmarked papers returned, pupils wrongly marked as absent from tests, inconsistent and poor marking and missing online results. Certainly one of the schools I was in yesterday, Roydon, had suffered from these, and it was reported that some 15% of schools had been affected in some way. It was time that politicians were held to account for this travesty.

Did one of those jobs I really don’t like doing-putting up posters, I don’t like doing it because where some of our notice boards are it is uneven and because I’m a little unsteady on my feet, I never feel that confident about it. I was a bit disappointed that in one of our church notice boards that our service poster was nearly three weeks out of date, even though they’d had the new one a week before the old had expired. Sometimes I wonder if we really want people to come to church.

On the way back to The Rectory had to miss the wobbling cyclists from Bressingham School doing their Cycling Proficiency Test. I had to wear my sternest face and control my hands from waving as I passed through. One year as I passed through one of the girls gave me such an enthusiastic wave she nearly fell off. I hope they all passed, they all seemed proficient to me.

Had some lunch with Jan, some horrible supermarket concoctions before going out to Roydon School with leaver’s books, flyers and posters. It is interesting that we give some 70 books out to children who are moving schools and I know they are much appreciated by children and parents, who pays the costs?

Jan & I called in to The Toddler Church, S was in full swing giving them a whistle stop tour of the church’s year, poor old A was desperately trying to keep up with the relevant hymns. Quite a few of the children were irritable, I think because the weather was a bit heavy and oppressive. The Toddler Church is a real antidote to the real church; if you ever feel like giving up church (I do frequently-are vicars allowed to say that?) just go to the Toddler Church and you see what it is really all about-forget the hassles of PCCs, bishops, doctrine & dogma and see the sheer joy on the faces of the children and their Mums.

Jan really worked hard yesterday, why? Because a vicar she knows quite well had volunteered us to run a coffee morning for one of our churches; so she was baking, shopping organising tombolas, raffles etc. What was the vicar doing who’d put us in this position? Absolutely nothing, because he didn’t feel too well!

It’s not the first time, or I suppose the last, that this vicar has done this to us. I think Jan ought to have words with her vicar friend.

Roydon PCC in the evening, not too bad we only missed our target time of 9pm by a few minutes; vicars really do go on, they always have to have the last word, it can be really infuriating. I think we should put a limit on how many words a vicar can say in a PCC meeting and once they’ve reached their allocation-they should shut up. Hopefully it was a good meeting, I enjoyed it even if the vicar did go on a bit.

Back home about 9.30pm quickly followed by supper and bed. I’m really looking forward to getting my book 101 things to do before you get old and boring, I’m enjoying its companion Things You must Know & Things you really don’t need to know. I’ve already learned how birds can sit on electric cables without getting electrified and other such invaluable information in my unquenchable thirst for vicarly wisdom; after all one never knows when someone might blurt out at a PCC Meeting “How do birds sit on electric cables without being electrified?” Then I can just casually tell them, if I’m awake or the vicar isn’t going through one of his diatribes. If you are reading this dear I brought them both on Amazon for 1p each!

I’m sure sometimes in this blog you may see very occasionally (perhaps once in a blue moon, white moon or no moon) spelling, grammatical mistakes and even misuse of apostrophes; can I tell you they are made deliberately; FIRST to see if YOU’RE still awake and reading and secondly because when I begin writing my daily blog I have no idea what I am going to write but can I assure you that I have a friend who tells me about every little mistake I make in the blog and gets me to write out several hundred times the correct way of writing something. I think my friend and my wife’s vicar friend should get together, they sound as if they would make a great couple. I do sometimes go back and correct them but quite frankly once I’ve written it I can’t be bothered unless it’s something that someone is going to sue me about. I do run a spell check but it tells me that most of the words I use don’t exist, there are at least two of them in today’s piece-A prize will be awarded for anyone who spots them all-the prize-absolute smugness in knowing more than the vicar does!