The organist librarian

Excellent Bishops' conference spirituality network day at Somers Town with Henry Wansbrough on the psalms. Mark Nash, Bishop Paul and nun from Turvey. Met Michael and Marie from Southwark Catholic spirituality network. 4 p.m.Farewell to Celia Blackden at CTE - she is now working for Focolare in Rome. Julian, Siriol and David from Bristol were there. Saw Gandhi statue in Tavistock Square. To Acton and Tom back from first day in new job in Reading. Wednesday Sean was good. Louise thought cleaner was coming (in fact she was ill) so we went to the gym before Watermans. Good evensong from Queens Oxford with Cecila McDowall anthem. Watched programmes on Sappho and Cleopatra. and Petrie.

Buss trike so we drove to Streatham synagogue where there was a good turnout for the interfaith harmony week breakfast. Nice to chat to Revd Nagase who knows Prem and showed him the Chennai videos. William was there and I met Maksud who I had contacted about Conversations! To art and worked on Ivor's portrait - quite pleased with it so far. Wrote an account of Celia Blackden as she is moving to Focolare in Rome! Sent parcel of music from Peter Myers to Iain Melville in Yelverton. With 2 Brendans to Dulwich circle at their new venue the Griffin sports club. Acoustics not great but lots to eat! 

Did some more work on the Eckhart quotes. Set off early for the cathedral hall. I got a little peeved as it rapidly became clear that most of the team had not read the emails I had carefully prepared. I also had to insist that the welcome table could not go in front of the stairs! Katharina had allowed people into the hall long before the opening time but I insisted on briefing everybody at 4. Elizabeth O'Donohoe insisted on doing her own thing and Margaret Slynn was a liability.Jon Dal Din also tends to muddle through.  If asked to stay in one place why can't people do so? Any way it went off alright with lots of warm welcomes and gratifying how many people knew me and my emails! Nearly all the 100 guests came and I suppose there were around 220 there. The people filming arrived 5 minutes before kickoff! Marcin was doing photos. The actual prayers were done well and plenty of silences. Archbishop Kevn did well and I was particularly impressed by the Jewish and Muslim contribu...

Thursday 12th to Regents Park as I was early and enjoyed the sunshine. To Cavendish conference centre for the conference which Jon Dal Din had asked me to attend. Good to see Alfred Agius, Katharina Muller, Celia Blackden and Nitin Palan. Lord Singh of Wimbledon spoke. We had good presentations and an excellent vegetarian lunch and 25th anniversary cake. Best of all was the workshop on religious/non religious and spoke to Lois Lee from Cambridge and Paul Weller from Derby university.