USES OF INCENSE

CHARLES JAMES...

Let me advise you never to trap a fox inside your premises. They are very adept at hiding and will try hard to get out when you're not around, but have poor bladder and bowel control. I spent the best part of last week repeatedly censing the nave at St Mary Magdalene's in an attempt to cover up the pungent odour of fox. I was reasonably successful, but used a lot of charcoal and incense.

Originally, I had thought that someone had brought a dog into church and let it run amok at one of PDT's public events, as when I came into church one Sunday I found James (the organist)'s slippers distributed around the chancel, and one of the sedilia cushions on the floor of the sanctuary with the corner chewed off. On the cushion were tell-tale dusty paw marks, which indicated small dog or fox. Then the next day, Liz from PDT was in to supervise a group and discovered fox droppings, which was conclusive, and also demonstrated that the fox was staying over. I was mystified as to how it had got in, until I went down to the undercroft and found that the two openings connecting the undercroft to the new extension were no longer sealed, but boarded up from about a foot above the floor, an arrangement that would exclude most humans, but none of the wildlife to be found on the Warwick Estate. I then had the idea of closing the staircase doors, so that the fox was confined to the nave, and would be easier to flush out if it was still inside. The contractors organised a team of men to try to find it, but they failed. Nevertheless, the fox was still in the nave, and could not then get out. It made more than one vigorous assault on the plasterboard that sealed off the opening from the nave into the extension, and destroyed a brand-new doormat in trying to dig its way out of the north door. Eventually, the excellent Liz sat in her car outside the church after dark and lured it out with cat food, closing the door behind it when it came out.


GRANDE PARTENZA

Much of the fox saga took place while I was away. I had gone to Bologna for a long weekend, taking in the Grande Partenza of the Giro d'Italia, but was unable to escape from the fox. Some people seemed just amused by this, while others had sympathy for the trapped creature, but I knew what my church was going to smell like, so it was not relaxing.

They call it "Bologna the red", which is partly for politics, but partly also because it's largely built of brick. Last time I was there San Petronio, the great civic church in the Piazza Maggiore, was closed because they had recently had an earthquake and they weren't sure how stable it was. Well, I say it was closed; there weren't any services, but they would let visitors go inside, about ten metres in inside the main door, which didn't seem very rational. Anyway, the result was that I had never properly been inside San Petronio until my recent visit, when I put that right. San Petronio was started in the 1390s, and they went on building until the sixteenth century to the same Gothic plan, so the vaults are an anachronistic marvel. Like many great Italian churches they never finished the facade, but what they did complete is very lovely. The point, though, is that San Petronio is a vast brick basilica; it is said that the burghers of Bologna in the fourteenth century wanted to build the biggest basilica in the world. You could fit three or four of St Mary Magdalene's inside it, but looking at it you can see some of G.E.Street's inspiration.


IT ALL MAKES WORK..

No, the contractors haven't finished yet. There were nineteen vehicles on site today, seventeen yesterday, and twenty on Tuesday, so they are certainly putting men on the job. There are some polished concrete floors in evidence. All the faience is fixed, and looks beautiful. The lift shaft has acquired doors at most levels. All the glazing is in. The lights are fixed. Most of the joinery is fixed. But there still seems an unfeasibly large quantity of kit sitting in the undercroft waiting to be fitted inside the extension. They are working very hard, but it is touch and go for our education programme which swings into action after half-term. Just keep praying.