November...

Monday morning at the old pop-stand.
The cleaning crew making at least token motions with vacuum cleaners and so forth. Our cleaning crew is a family business and I think it's the third generation at work this morning. If anything -- I fear -- they have even less ability to see that vacuuming must include the corners of the room than their "ancestors" possess.
However as regards decibel-output -- they're highly productive.

Which is somewhat rough on our daily piano-practising guest, working away at her recital pieces on the grand piano in the nave.

So far I have not found the rhetoric which will convey to the wielders of vacuum cleaners that they cannot actually vacuum around the feet of the person practising the piano. ("But all she's doing, is playing the piano for heaven's sake")

We "remembered" yesterday morning in good order with our usual guest trumpeter -- and the lists of names -- and a suitable display of poppies...

Wonder Curate preached and did very well.

We have had our first 'flu' fatality in the parish -- a young man who died very suddenly of complications, while travelling out of province.

I think we've moved into the saying-goodbyes phase of the retirement process here and in the Deanery. Clericus met here last Wednesday and my colleagues have given me a most sumptuous book -- Sibley's guide to bird life and behaviour -- not a field guide but a wonderful armchair supplement to the field guides.

we have a new phone system and a new photocopier and I don't know how to operate all of them...although I think they told me that if I were to phone the church and push the right buttons the phone and photocopier between them would sort my laundry, plan my menus, and presumably write my sermons also...it's all a matter of the right buttons.

The weather continues mild enough. I bought four new snow tires, on their own rims, at the end of October during a brief spell of snowy days. The snow all melted and now that I have the appropriate tires, it probably won't snow again until February. NOT THAT I MIND.

My work/sleep patterns are all to heck, so today for an experiment I got out of bed immediately upon awaking (5 a.m. approximately)and dealt with the mess in the kitchen and cleared a lot of stationery and correspondence of the dining-room table, removed the extra 'leaves'-- ran the dishwasher and a couple of loads of laundry, amalgamated and eliminated some clutter. (I'll probably topple over in a coma about 2 p.m.)

Tonight is the annual Bishop's Dinner so I need to schedule scooting home and donning festive raiment in the late afternoon.

I am thinking about our day-to-day practical ecclesiology...and may have something to blog later on this week.

We had a Marriage Preparation session this weekend -- I harangued the clientele on Friday evening on the parameters of their roles as worship leaders at their weddings -- and led a "workshop" Saturday afternoon on "spiritual issues" which is a very miscellaneous category. But energy was up and it went well; I can tell, when the participants lean over and pat me gently as they take their leave. It's most endearing. I'll miss it very much...

Am thinking that it may be time to foment a diocese-wide gathering of the parish knitters' groups... :-D.