This morning, just as I was cleaning the dining room before driving Clare to Newport for an osteopath appointment, I was hit by an excruciating pain in my lower back as I was bending to clean the feet of a chair I'd picked up, then I coughed involuntarily and felt the shock of a spasm running up the inside of my spine. No trapped nerve as happened by in February, but revelation of a weakness, an incomplete healing. So it was Clare that ended up driving me to Newport. Fortunately our osteomyologist Kay Saunders was able to treat us both.
Can it really be five years since I last went to her for treatment. I know from previous experience that her treatment, will speed recovery, though I expect several more days of pain and stiffness, due to what is effectively a re-opening of old wounds. Getting about now with the pain reawakens the memory of coping on my own in a strange apartment far from home earlier in the year. I had to learn extra patience and not to panic in the face of the challenge of staying mobile, and not being a liability to my hosts. What do I need to learn now? One thing seems certain. I must warm up properly before tackling housework in future, to make sure my back is as flexible as it needs to be. Perhaps spending a day reading a book, mostly on a far from ergonomic sofa, was also a contributory factor. That sofa has to go!
The new office chair in my study is now the most supportive and comfortable seat in the house, so it got well used in the afternoon and evening. The 'Thinking Anglicans' website told me that Canon Robert Innes, Senior Chaplain of Holy Trinity Brussels the pro-Cathedral for Northern Europe, has been appointed as Bishop of the Diocese in Europe. Diocesan Press Officer Fr Paul Needle interviewed him, as he was getting off the Eurostar shuttle at Waterloo, and posted it on You Tube. A positive way to declare his intention to exercise episcopal ministry from Brussels, commuting to the diocesan office as and when necessary.
To appoint a working Chaplain as Bishop, whose operational base will be within the Diocese he serves is most welcome. It represents a positive response to appeals made about these matters in consultations during each of the three previous episcopal selection processes. He's the first non-Anglo-Catholic to be appointed as Diocesan Bishop. Holy Trinity Brussels can be regarded as broadly Anglican evangelical, and Archbishop Justin's choice acknowledges that the Diocese in Europe's prodigious growth in the last thirty years owes much to broad evangelical Anglican missionary enterprise.
I spent the rest of the evening, watching episode two of 'Hinterland', which we missed yesterday, but could view via the 'Demand 5' website. Like the first episode, the storyline flowed around unfinished business from previous generations, and its fatal consequences for people today. The acting is excellent and the landscape photography beautifully atmospheric. Good to see Aberysytwth town showcased as a setting for some of the action. Definitely a must watch.
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