Church, cappuccinos and coatstands

Am feeling the pressure of apparent perfection in today’s Bible reading so here’s my take on it:

Meditation 214

Those early Christians
with all their

fellowship, sharing,
hospitality, gladness,

humility, praise
and that whole community life

sound really
rather dull

but then
I’ve always found

the concept of church
faintly suspicious

and really
rather false.


Teams – I’m just no good in them. Never see the point, myself … An obvious psycho-social lack in me, I’m sure. Ah well, tell me something I don’t know, eh. Anyway, I’ve also written a poem about marmalade biscuits. Well, they deserve some kind of accolade and it may as well be me.

Today, I’ve been rootling away with my long-running meetings crises and attempting to lie low, whilst worrying about Freshers’ Week. So much the same as a normal day, all in all. Still, our team cappuccino break late morning was much appreciated. It’s great to get out of the office and chill a bit once in a while. Especially before the rollercoaster ride of Freshers’ Week comes upon us.

In the meantime, the mysteries of office post collection continue. As we’re now in Senate House, the post department don’t deliver to us directly but leave and collect the post via the use of lockers on the first floor. Which means that at the specified posting times, crowds of staff are walking up and down stairs clutching the enormous brown post bags and looking ever so slightly anxious. The unwritten law seems to be that if you miss the time slots, then the post people remove your bags entirely and homeless pieces of post float round the building for ever and a day trying to find rest – so yesterday when it was my turn, pressure of work meant I never seemed to get quite the right time for it and we were left with no bags at all. So today we’ve had to pile up our outgoing post on top of the coatstand where the bag normally hangs. Honestly you wouldn’t put this sort of stuff in a Monty Python episode, you know, but it does all look rather pretty … Though I fear that everyone else in the office gets much more hung up about the post disasters than I do as I can’t get that excited about paperwork (unless it’s a novel contract, ho ho), but luckily Carol has saved the day and somehow found a spare bag when she took her turn. Which at least means the coatstand is back to its usual function, hurrah. I suspect I will – like double-entry bookkeeping – never really “get it”, sigh … It’s also been suggested that if the post department don’t want to climb up and down the Senate House stairs to deliver directly, then they should use the lift and just chuck the bags out at each floor – but I suspect that might well cause passing visitors some concern and will have the Health & Safety Department up in arms. It’s a nice image though.

Also managed to take a walk around campus at lunchtime, and I even remembered to take my trusty (so far …) e-reader with me. How I love that little mauve rectangle. Well, not so little really, but with my eyes I can’t be doing with too small. I also popped into the art gallery which had some wonderful pictures of strong solitary women. Very impressive.

On the way home, I popped in to see Gladys. They’ve changed her bed & seat positions lately so she can see more easily out of the window. Which is a good thing. Though, to be honest, I don’t know now if she sees any of the birds at the bird table at all. Still, I keep filling it up. Lordy but they’re greedy little things. Or maybe it’s the squirrels? Who can tell … Anyway, she couldn't be doing with me today, so I didn't stay long. Mind you, I can't really blame her - I am at odds with the world.

Tonight, I’m carrying on with my edit to Hallsfoot’s Battle, and I think I’m getting into the final stretch, hurrah. Or rather the beginning of the final stretch. The battle is at last in sight anyway. About time too, we cry.

Today’s nice things:

1. Poetry
2. Cappuccino
3. Lunchtime walks
4. Art
5. Editing.

Anne Brooke – wishing she were as frothy and bright as that cappuccino …
Disasters and Miracles: Bible life revisited