Where Did July Go?
I feel guilty not having posted for a month, but in truth it's not so surprising. I was, after all, away for the first twelve days of July, enjoying my friends' hospitality in Provence. I had pulled a muscle in my back, and so swimming in their pool helped, as did just lying down on the bed. I got out and cycled a couple of times, which was delightful (or would have been on my own bike). I saw a short-toed eagle while I was out, and was frequently hit while cycling along by large flying insects (mostly cicadas, I suppose). It was jolly hot. We had an excellent lunch one day at the hotel in Crillon-le-Brave, which is just two villages away (and has been fearfully poshed-up).
We went to a lovely concert as part of the choral festival at Orange, which took place in the eighteenth century courtyard of the music conservatoire. The courtyard was dominated by two large plane trees, and so as the wind blew leaves gently fell into the open piano. The apparently large population of cicadas in the trees also meant that total silence was never obtained; which the soloist Florian Sempey, accepted with a wry smile. He turned out to be a very fine singer (totally unknown to us, even to an opera-loving friend) with a wide repertoire.
I was there for the local Fete de la Figue, which was a good laugh. There are confraternities of fig producers as there are of wine growers, and they all paraded in their faux-medieval finery through the streets of the village, the fig producers being distinguished by their purple livery in general. The most entertaining, though, was the guild of strawberry growers of Carpentras, some of whose uniforms seemed designed to imitate strawberries.
Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
A certain amount of frantic contract-signing happened immediately before my departure. Foolishly, I had supposed we would have sorted it all out before then, but we seem to be making a speciality of taking things to the wire with the St Mary Mags Project. The execution of all the necessary legal documents finally happened last week, for which, God be thanked. Everywhere we went we found new things that required legal input, some quite unexpected.
I had intended that we should plan for an orderly packing-up, following a special service on 18th June, when we had invited a visiting preacher (the Chaplain of Keble College, Oxford) and singers to give us a good send-off, and celebrate the 150th anniversary of the start of building work. So I made those arrangements, but then our colleagues in PDT wanted to hold a concert on 21st July, and it seemed that there was no urgency to vacate the church after all. As their concert would have wanted all our chairs we could hardly empty the church, quite apart from it being bizarre to vacate the nave for worship, but still have a concert there, so it was agreed that we would stay until St Mary Magdalene's Day, which we kept on 23rd July. Since the builders were due to start work in the school on 24th July, and in church a week later, this didn't leave us much time. In the event, the concert did not happen, which was a bit frustrating. So we spent Saturday 22nd moving precious, fragile or valuable things to the Vicarage, which was very tiring, and then I spent much of last week sticking coloured labels on things.
Now I have statues in my sitting room, big oil paintings in my dining room, and a meeting room that is full of vestments, crucifixes and candlesticks.
I spent this Saturday going to Homebase to buy pond netting and then fixing it to the open balustrade down the outside stairs which lead to the Vestry, so as to make it more difficult for small children to fall through and dash themselves on the pavement below. I had pointed out the need for something like this to the architect, and then to the site manager, but nothing was done, so I did it. No doubt something better could have been done, but not by me.
We have set up the Vestry for Sunday worship, and people seem to have enjoyed it yesterday. The novel experience of being close together may be a bit disconcerting for some, but others may like it. You can actually hear them sing, which is interesting for me, and will probably result in everyone singing better. We shall perfect the choreography in time, but it all looks very decent, and we are able to have the Reserved Sacrament in a built-in safe behind the altar, so the presence of Our Lord makes it rather special. The room is vaulted and light, and now we have set it up looks genuinely churchy, which is reassuring.
Today the builders started to box up things in the church, which is very final.
Use the Facilities
For quite a while now I have had two portaloos on my front yard. The church portaloo used to be in the pigeon-infested north porch, but was then moved a few years ago to outside the vestry, as a healthier place, but also easier to clean. It did, however, attract the notice of locals, who availed themselves of it regularly. It was once pushed over, but we finally removed it when we found people using it to shoot up. By that stage we had installed one on my yard for some event, and so we had the vestry one craned out again, and a second installed on my yard, as two seemed good. They aren't particularly obvious so they don't seem to get too much "public" use, but I really don't mind. In the past I have seen a mother tell her child to squat down and urinate in my yard at school home time, which I'd rather not have. Last weekend a man walking his dog late at night proceeded to urinate against the outside of my fence right beside the portaloo, which seemed an odd decision.
