Things have changed

.. at last Keep them to it! and may we support them in that

the family photo

the family photo
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

I've been falling behind - I should have blogged that the family photos of last week's Ruby Wedding canal trip are now up

From the canal

dscf7215
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Been away - and today enjoyed a trip on the Kennet and Avon Canal using the Kennet Horse Boat Co for Andrew and Wendy's Ruby Wedding. More photographs to follow!
The wall instription says 'specialists in pork and bacon products but I wasn't quick enough on either occasion to get a full on photo.

Employment and clergy

From Jane Williams article in today's Guardian

The church can be a thankless employer, with poor boundaries between private and public space, vague practices about holidays and days off, laughable job descriptions and few opportunities to congratulate oneself on a job well done and completed.

Jane Williams is the daughter of Geoffrey Paul - who was Bishop of Bradford and before that Warden of Lee Abbey (as well as being in charge of Scargill council back in the 1980's) so she has good reason to know! She also writes:

The pressures on Rowan are huge. It is easy to underestimate how much support we get. All around the country people are praying [for him] and that matters enormously, we couldn't do without it.

may that continue!

Christmas letter

Most of this is already on here by searching back though the year, but here is the annual round robin letter - at least I hope it's there - the new router prevents me from checking that url as the file is on my home network and I've not yet found how to work my way around it!
Note to self - use ps2pdf rather than openoffice.org's pdf conversion tool - it bloats the output something horrid. Looks like there's an on line version of ps2pdf here - if you're not sure how to get a ps(postScript file) then 'print as file' will usually get you there!

Golden Wedding

Golden Wedding
Originally uploaded by rajmarshall

Lunch today with my parents-in-law to celebrate their Golden Wedding at the Wizard at Alderley Edge
. Their website has too much information as MSWord docs for my taste(!) but the meal was good. See here for the Flickr set of photos.

Excitement!

No idea what we were looking at..but the photo album that I took and some of the official photographers are here

Manchester

Into Manchester for Clare's degree day - more photos no doubt to follow! Lovely occasion enjoyed being at a degree ceremony where I wasn't a participant (at least in one sense). Better than Cambridge where you immediately get (or at least I was) shoved out of the door after your name was called instead most had a chance to relax and enjoy others receiving their reward!
Dinner for the second time in a month at Don Giovanni's in its new location, much enjoyed both times - I see that Manchester eating has some rather mixed reviews but we were there early which probably helped the service.
Trip to the HMV shop and as a result I need to do some serious listening, two boxes of 10 cd's (£5 each!) or Furtwängler and Mengelberg amd the 21 CD Stravinsky * 2 box of boxes is in the post...