The organist librarian

Liz to school, swam and Mass. No coffee as I think they had the Christmas lunch today. Watched tigers, Cliveden House and Michael Portillo on Brighton. 

Thursday Liz went to college. I swam 20! First time for weeks - been sleeping badly, waking up and dreaming. To church to get my pitch pipe and also returned indexed scores and picked up some more. To Notting Hill Unitarian church for a most interesting film about Orthodox spirituality. It was pointed out that it was very male in focus covering Sinai, Mt Athos and Russian monasteries. I came home to get my senior railcard and to East Croydon on the bus. Just caught fast train to Crawley  -then a cold wait for bus to hospital. Philip was pleased to see me and is making good progress - still cannot walk. He liked the small chess set from the Christmas cracker! I left at 8 and had a cold wait for first train but then changed at Three Bridges onto a fast one. Friday to St Matthew's and Margaret spoke well on Celtic spirituality. I had prepared Celtic evening prayer and it went very well especially St Columba. They liked Ciaran's sheep. The theme was Psalm 23. Unfortunately I misl...

Friday evening I got the train to Coulsdon South where Liz picked me up and we drove to Brighton. She had had a busy time when she found some bugs had eaten away the carpet under one of our sofas! The Grace and Compassion sisters have 4 different addresses in Brighton and eventually we found the right one in pouring rain - St Benedict's in Kemp Town. A delightful house with every comfort including en suite and TV in the room. As we missed supper we went into town and ate fish and chips at Harry Ramsden's. This proved an ideal quiet retreat with morning and evening prayer in the lovely chapel and daily Mass,excellent food and a warm welcome and good company. We sat at table with a delightful elderly Sister from Ireland visiting her dying sister-in-law in hospital and today we met Fr Carl from Hove. Saturday we set off to try and find an organ recital in Herne Rd but abandoned it and went on to English Martyrs, Goring-on-Sea with its remarkable copy of the Sistine chapel ceiling....