Monthly Archives: August 2016

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

bartholoSUNDAY 21st August – Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

I was supposed to be sailing today and yesterday. With gales of up to 60mph battering the Isle of Wight it is lucky we did not go out yesterday. The entrance antiphon: turn your ear o Lord and answer me, save the servant who trusts in you, my God. O Lord, I cry to you all the day long.

MONDAY 22nd August – The Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

I go down to Gosport. Have the courage to take the boat out on my own but everything works! Then a night on my own on the boat, cooking at sunset, listening to the sea birds and making myself a little supper of bread, eggs and bacon washed down with a beer and a glass of wine.

TUESDAY 23rd August

I wake up. It is a very low tide, the boat resting on the bottom. I go down gingerly and have difficulty getting back up again!

WEDNESDAY 24th August – St Bartholomew

Another hot day. London is stifling. We drive to Calais through appalling traffic and miss our boat. A good thing because we stay at Hotel des Dunes and I go for a swim and watch the sunset.

THURSDAY 25th August

We drive, though at times the heat is 37 degrees Celsius. We drove to Saint-Florentin on the Canal de Bourgogne.

FRIDAY 26th August

We go for a cycle, the canal on the left, green and barely used, shady with trees and flat. We start at Migennes and after a couple of hours I meet Mary at Saint-Florentin. I swim in the stream. I go to the Abbaye de Pontigny and find out after mass that St Edmund of Canterbury is buried there. A priest guided us around but I leave the others free to walk on and I pray before the tomb of Edmund, also exiled after having fallen out with the King. Perhaps he would be a good guardian angel, I can’t believe many pray to him each day. I drive through Chablis. Mary arrives exhausted and I cycle on. We drive to Buffon on the canal and stay the night there.

SATURDAY 27th August

I start cycling at Buffon. Little shade and very hot. Through Montbard past the Abbaye de Fontenay. One dead abbey a week is enough for me. The Abbaye de Flavigny is close and very much alive but nothing will be happening early afternoon. I find a cold shower but Mary carried on and I pick her up at Saint Thibault. Then I do the last bit to Pouilly-en-Auxois. We stay in an incredibly quiet little town. These Burgundy towns look absolutely dead in the heat but by chance we find a lovely mass, arriving just after the sermon. The priest is young; the ancient church full.

Psalm 118
“This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, but which has become the cornerstone”.

The Assumption & Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

virginSUNDAY 14th August – Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time

After mass I go to Benediction at 5pm and stay for two hours. Father Robert is doing an exposition of the Blessed Sacrament all night.

I am strangely happy during the meditation. Mindfulness is fine as it goes. The breathing and concentrating on it focuses the mind on the present, but if the Rosary is added to it, it is much more powerful.

MONDAY 15th August – The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

I wake at 4am, get up and drive to church. There is a slim sliver of light to east at the top of the Wolds over to the North Sea. Mass is at 5.30am. Contemplation then back to bed. I read the Dalai Lama and try to counter any anger and hatred with compassion and patience.

Sometimes I climb the hill behind our cottage and watch the ships making their gentle and steady way up the Humber 15 miles away. What a soothing sight to bring this slow progress into focus.

TUESDAY 16th August – St Stephen

A day in Lincolnshire reading, writing and walking.

WEDNESDAY 17th August

Another quiet day.

THURSDAY 18th August

Events and worries crowd in. I am reading the mindfulness book: one must not worry about the past, it is done, or fear for the future; all that is real is here and now. I go to mass. There was no point in moping in the garden so I went for a swim in Otby Lake which is always delightful and calming.

Then with the energy left I drove to Mablethorpe Sands to watch the sunset. For once there the sea was rough, I could barely stand. I love this vast beach, it is so empty. Driving back I stop on our lane in the Beech woods and listen to the Proms. Wagner. A peaceful scene of a rustling stream in the twilight. All events, problems, are put unto the perspective of the moment.

Psalm 51
“A pure heart create for me, O God, put a steadfast spirit within me.”

FRIDAY 19th August

Another glorious day of sunshine. I go back to Otby Lake. Here at the end of the reservoir one can see looking west the vast plain of North Lincolnshire. There is a little twinkling stream. It is enough to sit here after a swim for a whole hour and forget troubles.

SATURDAY 20th August

We drive back to London after going to a summer barbecue. There are huge storms in the south.

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

06_transSUNDAY 31st July – Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

I walk alone along the coast to an utterly deserted sandy beach with view of Eigg and Rum in all their splendour, the sky a Mediterranean blue. I try and paddle round but walk back happily. By the evening the whole family is here. I swim and paint, for the first time in months, and we walk.

We walk to the village and then up forest paths and take the road back for a late lunch. I would go to church but don’t have the energy to go to Mallaig, although the first time I came to these islands fifty years ago was to assist a priest in saying Mass on the Isle of Eigg. In the evening I cook spaghetti Bolognese.

TUESDAY 2nd August

A long walk to Inverguseran through a vast empty sun spread glen. I am grateful for a picnic there and a land rover ride back. I am reading D. K. Broster’s The Flight of the Heron and A History of Knoydart to get me in the mood.

WEDNESDAY 3rd August

I swim in the Loch – cold – and go for a canoe trip. There is a white Madonna at the entrance to Loch Nevis. We drive to the cemetery to look at Donald Craigmyle’s grave with its inscription – not a bad one to put on one’s gravestone: Like the deer that yearns for the running stream, so my soul yearns for you my God. Then we walk back past a former Church of Scotland now sadly a private house, although a very nice one. In the evening we drive for fish and chips.

THURSDAY 4th August

I walk alone up the path to Inverguseran then turn right, walking through great woods and an empty valley – a scene from the long trek in The Lord of the Rings – then along the side of a stream to a waterfall. I clamber down, take of my clothes and rest next to this waterfall – a scene out of some primordial paradise. The whole journey, stopping and starting, takes over five hours. Mary comes to find me in the Land Rover. Only one group of people met in that entire time. Come back wondrously tired.

FRIDAY 5th August

Sadly it is time to leave. I sit in the drawing room reading D. K. Broster on the ’45 rebellion and look through the Georgian sash windows across the sea loch to the utterly hills, stretching away into a far unseeable distance. They have an old gramophone and I put on Bach. These old gramophones are so nice and peaceful. One looks at a pretty sleeve, takes out the record and plays it and it’s not too long.

We take the ferry back to Mallaig and end up in a hotel right in the middle of Glasgow opposite the Mackintosh School of Art.

SATURDAY 6th August – Transfiguration of the Lord

I find the Jesuit church and go to mass, then sit there for another half an hour – it is a lovely baroque place. I have always found this feast day difficult but the priest describes it well. We are catching a glimpse of what we might be like after death. What Christ might really look like in all his glory.

Two people recognise me in the city. Strange, no one does in London.

We drive peacefully up to Aberfoyle and go for a walk around Loch Ard. The house is on a bank looking directly up the Loch.