Registrar and Paymaster

I drove back to St German's this morning, to be sure of being there in good time for the wedding of Andy and Michelle. Sun shone through the clouds, and although it was chilly, it wasn't impossible for people to stand outside on the church forecourt before and after. The church was nicely full, and several people from the church day centre next door came over to take a look, as Andy is well known to the regulars as one of the local PCSOs, who makes a point of popping in for a chat regularly.

As expected, I was all nerves filling in the registers, and when the photographer arrived and asked for a briefing, I sent him away until I'd finished the job. I didn't want to squander any concentration I had. I had thought about what I wanted to preach, but didn't find time to write myself some notes, so I just improvised, and enjoyed weaving together threads of ideas I'd had about William Blake's 'Jerusalem', which we'd just sung, and the brief scripture reading from Mark nine, which concludes with 'Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder.' I think the congregation was listening. It was a happy relaxed occasion, and afterwards I felt tired, as if I'd just had a good work-out. Perhaps I didn't sleep as long as usual. It's been a busy week too. Not exhausting, but I'm hoping next week will be easier, and allow me some down-time.

Home for lunch, then to the office for a couple of hours. The task of arranging salary payment for Ian, our Business Crime Manager, falls to me by default at the moment, as the procedure for adding bank signatories, so complex, is still incomplete. I went to our HSBC branch on Churchill Way and spoke to their business manager. I came away, having applied for a new bank card. The first one to be issued arrived just after I'd gone to Spain on locum duty. It wasn't collected, so it was re-absorbed by the system. I also applied for internet banking for the BCRP account. This will enable me to make salary payments electronically in future, but Ian's first salary payment was literally the cheque I gave him at the end of the afternoon. We have an excellent system whereby CBS accountants run a payroll account, and notify us monthly ahead of time what needs to be paid as salary, tax and social charges. Yet another thing I've done in retirement, I never did in my working life. It puts a different slant on what lifelong learning can mean.