Getting ready for whatever's next

A succession of late nights writing this past few days, feeding my story telling with new ideas, as I am now working on extensive dialogue that must be part of the narrative. A new challenge. 

We've had a succession of rainy days this week, a nuisance when there's shopping to do, and deciding when to get out and exercise. I finally started working on my application for a diocese in Europe Permission to Officiate. The email notification arrived in mid December, and it's taken until now for me to to get around to dealing with it. 

As I've done such a lot of locum duty in Spain and at four different places, the regulations require that I request a Spanish police record check, even though I wasn't there long enough to need to register as a resident in any of them. There's an on-line process, and I have to submit verified identity documents so that the Spanish national database can be scoured to reveal any crimes I may have committed. My conscience is clear. Only once in five years was I ever asked to show my driving license in a roadside check, and that was because I was driving cautiously on a darkened road I was unfamiliar with. No traffic offence committed! Getting all the required documents together and making sure they are accurate is a detailed task that demands effort and patience. But it has to be done.

In conversation with the diocesan administrator handling the process, I was asked if I was willing to a month's locum in March. Naturally, I said yes. I expect my last round of surgery in early February but not even a provisional date has been offered by the surgical team. I have a pre-op assessment in two weeks, and if all is well, I'll be told then. I haven't failed a pre-op assessment before but that doesn't matter as the process is so inflexible. This prevents me from planning. It's unfair. I appealed to the troubleshooter who's aware of my case and she has asked Mrs Cornish's secretary to flag this up as a priority item. That's as much as I can do, and hope for the best. Once the op is done, I don't anticipate more than a day's recovery, as happened previously. I'm confident that I'll be able to manage the final healing stage, after the past twelve months of living with it. I just want to get on with living normally and ministering abroad.

My daily average walk has increased from from five to seven miles without any goal setting or New Year's resolution. Despite complaining feet, my stamina is gradually improving, although conscious when out among walkers in the park that I'm noticeably slower than younger walkers. I wonder if my pace will ever improve as my endurance seems to these days.

I went to the Eucharist at St Catherine's this morning. Mother Frances has asked me to cover four weekday celebrations in February, and to celebrate and preach at St Catherine's the week after next.