Getting things in order

This week I completed and sent off nearly all of the paperwork to accompany an application for a permission to officiate in the diocese in Europe - well, thirteen of fifteen required documents. Making a new passport application was less difficult. It took an invitation to help out in the last month of the interregnum at the La Cote chaplaincy in the Pays Vaudois, which I helped grow into life in the nineties, to kickstart me into action.

I celebrated Mass at St Luke's Canton this morning, standing in for Fr Mark who, along with most of the serving clergy of the diocese, was summoned to the annual diocesan conference. Several worshippers came from a nearby old people's home with their carers. Co-incidentally the first readings ware familiar passages - the last chapter of Ecclesiastes plus the Gradual Psalm 90, both of which reflections on old age and mortality. I couldn't resist giving an improptu homily start from the fact that, apart from the carers present, the rest of us were getting on a bit in life and inclined think quite a bit about mortality and the passage of time, raising a few smiles and laughter. I still get much pleasure from an opportunity to preach the Word. 

Afterwards I made a trip to Staples and bought the cheapest all-in-one printer, photocopier and document scanner I could find for the CBS office - forty quid, not because we need a printer, but rather a scanner. The cheapest stand-alone scanner is fifty quid, and is far too well specified for the basic task of digitising records, my next project to make it easier to work from different locations. Although our office in Charles Street is ready for use, we are still working from City Hall because we have doubts about the security of keeping sensitive records in an open plan office in a building where there is still much un-monitored coming and going by enforecement officers. It's not in anyone's best interests for us to lower our vigilance threshold, so we keep on probing as diplomatically as we can to see if these needs can be better accommodated. And for the moment we put up with the difficulty of not being able to assemble or our assets in one place and run a 'proper' office.

Late afternoon, just after I'd finished installing the scanner software on the office laptop, Anto, Kath and Rhiannon arrived for an overnight stay,  to celebrate Clare's birthday. It's the first time they have visited us since we moved in and made changes to the house which they occupied for a couple of years when there were first married and we were in Geneva. This week the newly contructed linen cupboard at the top of the stairs got its coat of varnish, and we had a new panel fitted to the side of the bath, completing the renovation work planned. Before supper, we strolled over to the children's playground on Llandaff Fields for them to stretch their legs and relax in the evening sun. It's been a lovely autumnal day.