David's Blog

St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross

2012-01-22T22:54:00.004Z

An obituary in the papers last week reminded me of an amazing ’60s building I had seen on TV a while ago. The obituary was for Isi Metzstein, one of the architects of St Peter’s Seminary. Metzstein is credited with having a major influence on postwar ecclesiastical architecture.

St Peter’s was completed in 1966 as a Roman Catholic Seminary. However, it was never fully occupied and was eventually abandoned in the early 1980s. It was the first building in Scotland to receive a Grade A listing – and now it’s a ruin. Even in its present form, it’s possible to see what a striking building it must have been. I’ve tried to find some images of what it looked like when it was first opened. The best I have found are from the Jan-March 1967 edition of the Concrete Quarterly from the Cement and Concrete Association.

The ’60s saw the use of unconcealed shuttered concrete in buildings. This is still very visible in the National Theatre on the South Bank. It was also used in the new halls of residence at IC – I was never a resident in these but several of my friends were. However, these were demolished a few years ago. All this is very apparent at St Peter’s and may have speeded its demise: it’s not the most popular of finishes and, I think, has just about been abandoned. There’s another example in a shopping arcade in Birmingham which has a very bold design rather spoiled by the very dull finish: They’ve tried to revitalise it by calling in ‘Paradise Circus’

However, look beyond the surfaces and there are some fantastic spaces and shapes in St Peter's. What a shame that, in spite of several attempts to reuse it, it still lies empty.

For more info and pictures today, look up “St Peter’s Seminary, Cardross” on Wikipedia

The full Concrete Society journal can be downloaded here

Bureaucracy and ’elf ’n’ safety

2012-01-16T23:37:00.003Z

The bank has relented and is now being sensible about opening the account! So fight silly bureaucracy if you get an opportunity.

I’ve been told I spelt it wrongly – it’s ’elf ’n’ safety! Here’s a story where some sensible precautions would make sense – not bureaucratic HSE nonsense. I’ve abbreviated the story a little to copy it here. It starts with a man painting a church clock:

But the ladder isn’t just a long one from the ground:

And even this isn’t the end:

You can see the full story here: http://www.vertikal.net/en/news/story/13244/

Now, wouldn’t some simple Health and Safety precautions make sense here?

Bureaucracy

2012-01-14T09:15:00.003Z

I had fun yesterday fighting jobsworth bureaucracy! The Church is trying to open a new bank account – I won’t bore you with the reason. Churches have had charitable status for some time but only recently have we had to register with the Charities Commission. The bank as part of its processes wants to check the trustees of the charity. This is a reasonable procedure for small charities: I work with a few that are quite genuine but have a small group of trustees and operate from someone’s house. Our trustees are the members of the PCC and the bank was querying that the names supplied in the application form (in excess of 20) didn’t quite tie in with the list on the Charities Commission web site: correctly so because the site is as at the time of the return whereas the current membership of the PCC is slightly different. I couldn’t see why a slight variation in the names made us a significant risk to the bank and so I challenged them. I was told that they needed the exact list and this was an FSA requirement. It was suggested that an alternative would be for our accountant to verify the list of trustees. When I said that we don’t have an accountant but asked if the Bishop could verify the list I was met with a stunned silence – then denial unless the Bishop is FSA registered!

So I phoned the FSA. The nice man there did some research and confirmed that there is no FSA requirement for banks to validate the full list of trustees: it’s a purely commercial decision. I reported this to the bank who is still trying to sort itself out. I’ll let you know the outcome.

But it’s like ’elth ’n’ safety: blamed for everything and causes common sense to go out of the window. Surely an established Church of England parish that has been around in some form for hundreds of years and can provide at least 20 names of its trustees can be trusted!

Good press for youngsters

2012-01-09T23:34:00.000Z

Amid all the bad publicity that the youth seem to get these days, it was great to hear the item on Saturday Live last weekend about Joseff Edwards, 18, who drives the school bus to his school at Whitland, Carmarthenshire, then joins his passengers in the 6th form. You can hear the item here – sorry, BBC, this is probably copyright! There’s a picture on the Wales online web site.

I get cross that youngsters never seem to get anything but bad publicity yet most of the ones I meet are well behaved, committed and hard working. I did some practice interviews of potential 6th form candidates just before Christmas. Most of them were very impressive: one lad spoke in well-formed sentences (none of the “er... like...init.. stuff), one girl liked art (but not the really modern stuff, more the traditional old masters) and wants to be an engineer, and another, when asked what she did in her spare time said she writes: stories for children!

23 December – Enjoy

2011-12-23T23:46:00.000Z

Some of the family have arrived. They helped to make mince pies this afternoon.

What more could anyone want?

I think with the imminent approach of Christmas – and the rest of the family, there’ll be no more ‘Do Nothing...’ So, see you in Church at Christmas, or on the blog in the new year

22 December – joy

2011-12-23T00:33:00.000Z

Driving round the Chilterns today (last-minute shopping!) resonated with the suggestions for the day: moments that are inexplicable wonderful. The shops weren't quite as good but even here, things seemed less rushed than usual at this time of year!

Tomorrow: enjoy what you have

21 December – Faith

2011-12-23T00:32:00.000Z

Will I go to Church this Christmas? Yes, at least three times. Will I be able to participate in the worship – rather than worrying about all the arrangements? I hope so! And I hope the grandchildren will go to one of the crib services – either here or in Tring. I don't expect they'll make it on Christmas Day – too busy opening presents!

Next: joy

20 December – Father Christmas

2011-12-21T23:01:00.004Z

No question here: the grandchildren are very young – Father Christmas is real! I remember in primary school having doubts when I saw, under the red cloak, shoes and trouser turnups that looked exactly like those of one of the teachers.

Next: faith

19 December – family again

2011-12-21T23:00:00.002Z

Again, not too difficult! And ‘Take yourself less seriously’ – I don’t think I’m too serious: perhaps that’s a problem! We have had some fun with the family today: one grandchild asked for a box for his sticker books and another has requested silent crackers.

Next: Father Christmas

18 December – family

2011-12-20T23:26:00.000Z

This shouldn’t be too difficult! The implication on today’s ‘Do Nothing...’ is that family Christmases are stressful and full of disagreements. Luckily we’re not like that – or at least to date we haven’t been. But we will plan lots of joint activities so that we’ll do things together. As for a Boxing Day walk: let’s hope the weather is better than last year:

Next: family again

17 December – people

2011-12-20T22:43:00.002Z

Well, I do know my next door neighbours’ names – and most of the people in the village, but that’s another advantage of living in a small community. We don’t see each other much apart from passing on the double bend or over the occasional village lunch – harvest was the last.

Stephen Cottrell talks about networks: I’m chatting to daughter Lucy as I draft this entry. And Alvin, next-door neighbour is online, too. I’m also trying to connect with an ex work colleague but she’s not watching her PC! These networks do keep us together. Ah – Ewa has woken up – she’s in Warsaw. So as well as drafting this, I’m chatting to Tring and Warsaw. The world has shrunk. I still tell the story of one of my IT Friends whose Skype webcam I helped to set up. I had an e-mail from her on Christmas day saying that she had seen her grandson in New Zealand opening his Christmas presents. Great!

The question in ‘Do Nothing...’ that asked ‘Do I only ever mix with people like myself?’ made me think. I remember having a pub lunch with a group of work colleagues on one project a while ago. I had recruited all the colleagues to the project. Over lunch it suddenly struck me that these were people just like me: perhaps it was just that we were all had similar skills. Or was it more than that?

Next: family

16 December – Charity

2011-12-19T23:10:00.000Z

Choosing charities to support is a challenge: do I go for national ones or small? Ones that support local activities or abroad? I think I tend towards local ones and ones that connect somehow. What I do object to is the practice of sending cards or labels or similar ‘gifts’ on spec because although I understand the thinking behind these, I’m sure they make lots of people think they are under some obligation to support the charity. I’m afraid they go straight into the recycling bin or on the fire.

Looking back on the charities I’ve supported with my computer work, these have either been very local (youth work in the Church, Wycombe Winter Night Shelter) or ones that friends have been closely associated with (Midwifery with Altitude, Kidney Research)

And I do have some standing orders for charities, although having checked, I think I need to review the list!

Next: people

15 December – Christmas lights

2011-12-19T00:15:00.004Z

I had planned to try to find some houses with extensive Christmas lights but I ran out of time (so much for ‘do nothing...’) I don’t think the extra lights temporarily installed in Church to help the choir read their music counts as Christmas lights.

Instead, I’ve done a little research into LED lights – we’re encouraged to replace our Christmas lights with LED ones. These (LED lights) have developed enormously over the last few years and are now available as replacement light bulbs for household use. I was surprised to see that the first observation of electroluminescence was made by a British researcher in 1907, well before semiconductors became widely used. The physics is fairly simple: when a current is passed through a semiconductor diode, electrons combine with holes in the material and the result is the emission of energy in the form of photons – light. The engineering is a little more complex: getting the right wavelength of the light and making the light usable isn’t easy. However, recently we’ve seen a plethora of LEDs in everyday use – as well as Christmas tree lights.

LED lights are still not as efficient as fluorescent ones – but are better than incandescent lamps. They do, however, switch on very rapidly. You may have seen recent cars with brake lights that come on very quickly, much faster than ordinary bulbs which have to warm up. There are also LED traffic lights which can be seen to switch quickly. Their life is considerable, too, provided that the operating conditions are observed: typically 35,000 to 50,000 hours compared with 10,000 to 15,000 hours for fluorescent lamps and 1,000 to 2,000 for incandescent bulbs. I’m suspicious of the compact fluorescent lifespan: I’ve had to replace several on our outside lights, although these may be suffering from significant temperature variations.

LEDs are currently very expensive although the lifetime cost may be less than other light sources. In our kitchen we have downlighters set into the ceiling (which is low to match the rest of the house) I;ve replace some of these with compact fluorescent reflector bulbs which are fine when they are warmed up but do take 10 minutes or so to get to working condition: not very convenient when we want to pop into the kitchen to make a pot of tea! I’m looking out for LED replacements – but not at a price between £100 and £300!

If you want to read more about LEDs, I suggest you have a look at Wikipedia. And of course there’s a web site selling LED lamps - www.ledbulbs.co.uk

Incidentally, we still have incandescent lights on our tree – because they haven’t failed yet – but the lights on the porch gable are LEDs.

Next: charity

14 December – simple delights

2011-12-17T23:10:00.003Z

We looked at the Nativity story a couple of days ago. Today, well, actually last Wednesday, Stephen Cottrell says ‘Take some child-like delight in what is happening around you today’ When I looked out this morning, there was a layer of snow, a clear blue sky with the sun just peeping over the horizon, and mist in the Rignall valey. I resisted the temptation to get my camera again – I have so many pictures of Little Hamden! But it was delightful. So here are some of the images I’ve captured at this time of year.

Next: Christmas lights – and I’m catching up!

13 December – overdoing the food

2011-12-17T22:51:00.000Z

Yes, we all overdo the food over Christmas. As I started drafting this there was an ad on the TV for Aldi’s Four Bird Roast. Chicken, turkey, duck and goose layered with a pork, sage and onion stuffing and with a sweet marmalade glaze to complement the flavours.

The Morrisons web site has a Big Lunch Guide. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a juicy turkey in the centre of the table. We’ve put together lots of top cooking and carving tips from our Market Street expert Butchers to help you serve up something spectacular this year.

Sainbury’s have Taste the Difference Norfolk Black Turkey - free-range and slower grown for extra succulence and flavour.

Asda has 57 items under the Christmas Day main course menu.

I hope we’ll be fairly sensible!

Next: see through the story to simple delights

12 December – the nativity story

2011-12-16T18:03:00.000Z

I like the suggestion that we should fill Church aisles with cow dung and horse manure during Christmas to get back to the reality of the story. We’ve seen one Nativity Play this year: Mary got rather bored and spent the latter half sucking her thumb!

However, the best story I have seen so far was sent by a neighbour: it’s really how the story would go today – have a look at this youtube video.

Next: overdoing the food

11 December – drink

2011-12-15T20:02:00.000Z

Not sure about this one! Unsociable drinking is a problem but not one we suffer in Little Hampden now that the Rising Sun has closed. Thinking about pubs, we’ve started holding many of our Church meetings in a pub over a meal, and a modicum of drink, of course. These have been incredibly effective: we get a lot of work done and the friendly atmosphere and companionship makes a big difference. Fortunately we have a few hostelries that welcome us and we don’t seem to interfere with other customers or be too disturbed by them. Our regular Deputy Warden meeting always ends with The Grace (not the Messy one – yet)

Next: the nativity story

10 December – simple toys

2011-12-14T23:24:00.001Z

Toys and other gifts are getting more complicated and expensive. It wasn’t really during Advent but a while ago the grandchildren had great fun making a castle out of a cardboard box, some sellotape (lots of sellotape) and a few other odds and ends. They’ve added to it over the weeks and had as much fun from this as their expensive toys.

Next: drink

9 December – Stillness

2011-12-14T23:02:00.000Z

I’m even further behind and finding time is even more challenging. The suggestions for 9th December include ‘Treat yourself to a few minutes stillness today...’ ‘Listen to a piece of music or read a poem or just dare to be silent...’ It wasn’t quite what was meant but I did have several periods of stillness today: I was doing practice interviews for some year 11 students at The Misbourne. The stillness was while I listened to their achievements, aspirations, thoughts and plans. As usual a mixed bunch but some quite inspirational answers: one who writes stories to amuse herself, one who has built his own PC, one who has played basketball for the South of England, one whose answers were all well constructed, well thought through sentences, one who wants to study Physics and engineering – and enjoys art, but prefers the old masters to modern stuff.

The book says: ‘What are the things that get you back in touch with yourself? Treat yourself...’

Today was a treat.

Next: simple toys

8 December – Homelessness

2011-12-11T23:56:00.000Z

Four days behind! I really need to find time...

Thursday was about homelessness. It’s difficult to accept we have homeless people not far away but the Old Tea Warehouse in High Wycombe and the Wycombe Homeless Connection (previously the Wycombe Winter Night Shelter) are evidence that we do. One of the youth groups in Church, Reach, are doing a series of activities to help them understand what it’s like to be homeless and today they were cooking over a camp fire. It was a good day for them – cold with a little drizzle. I think they really understood the challenges of living on the streets.

Next: stillness.

7 December – mealtimes

2011-12-08T22:23:00.000Z

I’m a day late with reporting this but the reason is significant. Yesterday was about Christmas cake and mealtimes. We have delegated the former to our daughter whose two sons like doing the icing. Expect an orange cake with knights on it.

However mealtimes rang a bell yesterday. Stephen Cottrell says “Bring back mealtimes! Start a new regime where dinner is on the table at a certain time and you all sit together” For some time the gang of deputy wardens we have at the Church have met regularly over a meal to review the past month and to plan the next activities. We have an excellent local pub which reserves a corner table for us and serves super food. And we do a lot of business. The companionship engendered by the closeness of a joint meal as well as sharing ideas, suggestions, problems and solutions makes us a much closer team and we’re much more effective for it. Yesterday happened to be the day on which our December meeting was scheduled. ’Twas meant to be!

We’ve extended the mealtime meeting to lunch meetings – a different pub which has good lunchtime food and a quiet table. We’ve had a few comments and some sceptics but it works. And I think this is very much in the spirit of Do Nothing....

Tomorrow – I mean today – homelessness

6 December – Christmas Trees

2011-12-06T21:53:00.004Z

We had the children of Little Hampden here today making decorations for our tree in the Christmas Tree Festival which opens at St Peter & St Paul, Gt Missenden, on Friday. We haven’t got the tree yet but the decorations are all angels. Stephen Cottrell says on today’s page: “What angels will visit you today? What messages are you listening to?... the word Angel means ‘messenger’. There are messages for you today.

Tomorrow: Christmas Cake and meal times

5 December – Credit

2011-12-05T22:18:00.001Z

I tried one cash purchase today but failed: The Misbourne students are doing Twelfth Night and I thought it would be a fun evening and good to support them. So I rolled up at the school to buy some tickets – only to be told that they are only available online so I had to use a card.

I’m not going to cut up my credit cards. They are an easy way of paying – the only way in many cases, as with The Misbourne – and come with benefits (points, ‘free’ travel insurance...) although apart from the John Lewis vouchers most of these are of limited value. I haven’t looked at whether the new Avios scheme has any good offers - but, of course, these won’t help me to get in touch with Christmas!

Tomorrow: Christmas Trees

4th December – reality vs the ads

2011-12-04T23:35:00.001Z

Just as I sat down to pen (ok, key) this blog entry, the John Lewis Christmas ad appeared on the TV. I’d already started looking for more background on this – is the JL ad the measure of the times? There’s a ‘Making of..’ video on the JL website – the ad cost £5m. The good thing about the JL ad is that it’s all about giving, not receiving. There’s an interesting commentary about this and other Christmas ads on the Guardian web site.

As an aside: it’s interesting that the anti-capitalist protests don’t seem to worry about retailers – that bit of capitalism is ok?

Stephen Cottrell thinks the ads are far from reality – families don’t behave like this. I think I’m very lucky that our gang are not at all dysfunctional. We’re not like the JL ads but family get-togethers are fairly stress-free. One Grandson’s suggestion to occupy himself and his mother when his school was closed last week was that they go together to have lunch at Da Vinci’s, the local Italian restaurant!

The book also refers to snowy ads asking ‘why is it always snowing on the adverts? Can anyone remember the last time it snowed at Christmas?’ I can: 2010, 2009. I hope this isn’t a portent of a white Christmas for 2011!

But back to connecting with the real story of Christmas. Carolyn’s story this morning was really relevant: we’re so busily inundated with info these days that we don’t stop.

3 December – shopping again

2011-12-03T22:25:00.003Z

Another day to get away from the shopping rat race. Stephen Cottrell asks to consider what we really need – not what we think we want. He suggests we try a walk in the countryside – I only have to walk outside the front door to do this!

I happened to be browsing some web sites searching for information about volunteers when I spotted a note about Hertzberg’s Two-Factor theory – which rang a bell in the context of today’s ‘Do Nothing.’ Although developed to understand what motivates employees, it seems relevant in today’s thoughts. Hertzberg says there are two sets of factors: hygiene and motivation.

Hygiene factors, if missing, lead to dissatisfaction, but in themselves don’t motivate people. They need to be there for a degree of satisfaction, but they are not what it’s all about. Motivators are what drive people, or, in today’s context, are what people need. Hygiene factors include things like living conditions, relationships with peers and, interestingly, money. The real motivators are things like achievement, recognition, responsibility, growth. Translated from the workplace, I think this goes a long way to explain the answers in Stephen Cotrell’s book – what people really wanted for Christmas: “end to violence, peace in the middle east etc”

I found another relevant reference: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs which has a similar message: there are a set of basic needs which need to be met before the higher-level drivers can have an effect on people, but these basic needs do not motivate. The basic needs include breathing, food, water, security of body and of employment. Maslow’s theory says that highly motivated people go beyond the basics and are driven by ‘Being-needs’ such as morality, creativity, esteem.

I know sometime during Advent I’ll be challenged to engage with people for whom the hygiene factors or ‘deficiency needs’ are a major problem, but for today, I think I’ve been given a new outlook on things.

If you want to read more about Hertzberg and Maslin, I think the Wikipedia entries are to be trusted! Click here for Hertzberg Maslow

Tomorrow: the reality of life contrasted with the images in the ads.

2 December – Christmas shopping

2011-12-02T23:50:00.002Z

Well, Stephen Cottrell today is all about shopping and avoiding getting caught up in the commercialisation of Christmas; buying the same simple present for everyone or shopping at charity shops. I did none of this! But I did manage to get away and get connected to the meaning of Christmas twice today.

First it was a wonderful Nativity play performed by a crowd of infants at school. The little ones were obviously enjoying it and really understood the story. Mary did get a little tired about it all and was sucking her thumb by the end but it was a great start to Christmas.

Later today it was the youth club The Zone. We had bought some simple Christmas decorations in Hobbycraft in Aylesbury. Several of the youngsters enjoyed making them up – sticking decorations on the trees. This again was an escape from the rush of Christmas and getting in touch with the real meaning.

But no shopping.... Tomorrow the diary is pretty clear so shopping may call!

1 December – Advent ... do nothing again

2011-12-01T23:54:00.006Z

1st December has arrived so here we go again. Day 1 starts to get things into perspective: prune the Christmas Card list, make lists of what’s important rather than of gifts. Brenda has stocked up on cards so I won’t prune too much besides, relationships are important – even those we only re-establish once a year.

The gift list made me think about what is really important: friendships, working in teams, doing things together. I found some good ‘gifts for him’ in the Sunday Times last weekend. In these straitened times, it’s rather surprising that gifts like this are on anyone’s lists. So here is a list of gifts I don’t need:

A new watch: an Omega Terra XXX Small Seconds watch £13,200. If it had a full sweep second hand I may have considered it.

A new camera: a Leica M9-P £5,395. The lens is extra – and not quoted.

Underwear: Liberty Print boxer shorts £32. Not quite in the same league as the others. My friend Ian likes Liberty print shirts so he may approve of these... but probably not.

I also had an e-mail this week – I don’t think it was a spam – offering me an Aston Martin Vantage for only £699 per month. I was tempted until I saw the small print: deposit of £29,999 and last payment of £46,512. So another gift not on the list!

Does this help to put Christmas in perspective?

Day 7 – arrival!

2011-11-23T23:39:00.003Z

Last day: we were ahead of schedule so had a fairly easy day. There were more straight cuttings and tall bridges.

The bridges on this section still have the cast iron plates to protect the stonework from the ropes on the horse-drawn boats.

The only tunnel on this section, the Cowley tunnel, is only 81 yards long but is cut out of solid rock so no lining is necessary.

After the one lock and a stop for lunch (during which there was a shower of rain – the only one during the day for quite a while - and we were in the cabin) we arrived at Norbury Junction at 2:50. We moored short of the boatyard for tea.

After driving back to Stockton to collect my car, we opened a bottle of fizz to celebrate the end of the journey.

Day 7 was 10.1 miles, 1 lock.

Over the week, we travelled 53.7 miles and passed through 88 locks. The journey by car back to Stockton was 72 miles – going round Birmingham – but took 1 hour 40 minutes...

Click on the maps below to see a larger version with the GPS track overlaid:

Wolverley move again – Wednesday, onto the Shropshire Union

2011-11-21T21:57:00.005Z

Wednesday was the day when we got onto the Shroppie at last. But first the Wolverhampton locks – a flight of 21 in 2 miles or so. Some way down the flight was a fascinating high railway bridge with a wonderful skewed arch for the canal to pass under.

We had left the mooring at 9 am and cleared the last lock at 11:45 – including a ten minute break for tea just after the railway bridge and before lock 17. Just below the bottom lock was Aldersley Junction – not yet into the Shroppie but nearly there.

At noon exactly we turned at Autherley Junction into the Shropshire Union – and a stop lock. The log says “...now they tell us there’s ANOTHER lock”

We were soon on the Shropshire Union – with its long straight sections over embankments and through cuttings, and its wonderful stone bridges, many much taller than on other canals.

... and a modern motorway bridge carrying the M54

We moored at Brewood and celebrated with a cream tea at The Mess.

Day 6: 6.6 miles, 22 locks

Click on the maps below to see a larger version with the GPS track overlaid:

Panto photos

2011-11-20T00:34:00.001Z

Click on the picture to see larger versions

Tuesday – Black Country – part 2

2011-11-17T23:40:00.001Z

Adjacent to the sad lock was a wonderful cast-iron aqueduct where a branch of the Old Main Line crosses the New Line to an enginehouse.

Below on the new main line was a toll island where boats were measured so that the weight of the cargo they were carrying could be read from markings on the sides – like the Plimsoll Line on modern sea-going vessels.

Once we were through the Summit Tunnel – which appears to have been relined with reinforced concrete, very different from another tunnel later in the week – we were out in the countryside again. In most places the canal is very murky – you can’t see the bottom even if it’s only a few feet deep. However here the water was incredibly clear – we could see the bottom, the weeds and, occasionally, the fish!

Day 5: 13.1 miles, 3 locks

Click on the maps below to see a larger version with the GPS track overlaid:

Tuesday – Black Country – part 1

2011-11-14T22:55:00.004Z

Black Country?

We left urban Birmingham with its shopping and architecture and headed west. We had decided to take the old main line rather than Telford’s new line.

Our only three locks, the Smethwick flight, were marked by flowers left by friends of Sara and Fayz, two teenagers who had lost their lives at the top lock on the previous Wednesday. A very sad interlude on our trip.

Click on the map below to see a larger version with the GPS track overlaid:

Monday – no locks to Birmingham

2011-11-11T23:06:00.003Z

Monday was a lock-free day, unless you count the stop lock at Kings Norton Junction. This has guillotine gates but was open all the way though:

Before the junction we had another lift bridge – but this one was on a main road with electrically operated barriers.

Here are the crew and the cars they stopped – who weren’t too friendly!

Kings Norton Junction is the end of the Stratford canal we were now on the Birmingham and Worcester. The tollhouse at the junction is a beautiful building:

Did you notice the finger post? 40 locks to Warwick!

On the way up to the centre of Birmingham we passed the University and resisted stopping at Cadbury World at Bourneville. We eventually moored near Gas Street Basin in the heart of Birmingham near The Mailbox. The girls were talking about Harvey Nicks – whatever that is!

Day 4: 10.3 miles, 0 locks
Click on the maps below to see a larger version with the GPS track overlaid:

Sunday – ahead of schedule

2011-11-09T22:59:00.002Z

Sunday was another big lock day – but not quite as bad as Saturday. And a lock-free day to look forward to tomorrow! After an early start we went through the Shrewley tunnel. The girls walked over the top to the village to buy newspapers. They had to walk through the horse tunnel that took the towpath over the top – there was no towpath through the tunnel. In the horse-drawn days, boats would be legged through!

At 9:20 we turned off the Grand Union canal and onto the Stratford. We had another flight of locks, but these were all single width 7 foot ones, so much lighter than the Grand Union. We completed the flight of 19 locks, leaving the top lock (number 2) at noon exactly. Number 1 is the stop lock at the North end of the Stratford – wait till tomorrow! After Lunch, we came to the first of the lift bridges – more winding with the windlass!

The Canal was beautiful here – although no autumn colours yet. Our log says "15:19 Moored in sunshine just before dickens Heath"

Day 3: 9.4 miles, 19 locks

Click on the maps below to see a larger version with the GPS track overlaid. The GPS doesn’t align too well, I’m afraid.

Hatton to Kingswood:

Kingswood to Dickens Heath:

Saturday – a big day

2011-11-08T23:59:00.001Z

The schedule for Saturday was to get to Warwick. However, we did some more detailed calculations on Friday evening and realised that this would leave the next two days too hard to achieve. So we decided to start the Hatton Flight on Saturday. This meant forgoing the Warwick restaurants – but we remembered The Waterman, near the top of the Hatton flight! So we set of early for a day of locks.

Through Leamington, we shared the cut with a Sprint Canoe. I’d never seen one of these before but apparently it’s in the Olympics. It looks very hard work and uncomfortable. This canoeist was obviously in training.

After 8 locks, we turned North and started the Hatton flight. Although not the longest flight on the English canals (Tardebigge has that honour – 30 locks in 2¼ miles) the 21 locks at Hatton are quite a challenge. Known as the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ they are not quite in a straight line so you can’t see all of them at once. Looking back, there’s a wonderful view of the tower of St Mary’s, Warwick, but we didn’t look back too often!

We were lucky with the locks as virtually all were set for us – they were nearly empty so we didn’t have to spend time emptying them before opening the bottom gates. The flight of 21 locks we completed in just over 3 hours including a 20 minute break for tea.

Day 2: 9.6 miles, 29 locks

Click on the map below to see a larger version with the GPS track overlaid:

Day 1 - Friday

2011-11-07T22:38:00.005Z

We were all on board by about 1pm on Friday and ready to leave. The schedule required us to get within a day’s cruise from Warwick – but there are quite a few locks on this section. We set off at 13:20 but just moved out of the marina for a late lunch. After a short break the journey proper began.

The day’s route included the Bascote Staircase – two connected locks where the bottom gate of the top lock is also the top gate of the bottom one.

We eventually moored just before the Welsh Road lock at 16:30.

Day 1: 4 miles, 14 locks

Click on the map below to see a larger version with the GPS track overlaid:

The big move - the plan

2011-11-06T22:15:00.003Z

The route is quite important but getting cars in the right place is also key! We had as crew Veronica from near Rugby and Ian from Ramsbottom. So the obvious plan was for Ian to leave his car at Norbury and for me to pick him up. We persuaded Veronica to host us on Thursday night so I drove up to pickup Ian and we then returned to Veronica. Brenda had a rehearsal on Thursday so she was to join us on Friday when the move proper started.

As far as the canal route is concerned, there are not too many options. The various books and web sites showed the journey to be achievable in the time available – we could start sometime on Friday afternoon and wanted to get to Norbury on Thursday in time to drive back for my car. However most days were fairly full and we’d have to find suitable mooring locations en route. My original plan had us stopping at Warwick on Saturday (good restaurants) and Gas Street, Birmingham, on Monday (even better restaurants!) However, this meant that Sunday and Monday were very long days and the risk of not getting to Gas Street on Monday. Finding secure moorings in the outskirts of Birmingham is difficult: many locks in some urban areas have security locks to stop the vandals and you can imagine how tempting a narrow boat may be. There are two routes from Warwick to Birmingham: the Grand Union and the North Stratford canal. The latter is shorter and has fewer locks but fewer moorings if we failed to do the full distance. The Grand Union route includes going up the Farmers Bridge locks in Birmingham which are wonderful but the total route has more locks 51 instead of 41 in the Stratford route.

I did some research and found a secure mooring at a suitable place on the Grand Union route. However these moorings are so secure there is no access except by boat: so much for a meal out in Birmingham if we had to stop here. So we had two options for this part of the route.

Across Birmingham from Gas Street to Tipton and Wolverhampton there are two alternatives: the Old and New main lines. Each is about the same distance and each has 3 locks. There is an alternative of doing part Old and part New and 9 locks. So we left the decision on this until we got to Gas Street.

Other parts were fairly straightforward and we were confident we’d find good moorings. We also planned to eat on board other nights.

So the big adventure was about to start. We were hoping for some Autumn colours on the cut...

Wolverley - the big move

2011-11-05T11:47:00.003Z

We’re just back from an exciting week when we moved the narrowboat Wolverley from its old base at Stockton, near Rugby, to the new base at Norbury Junction, near Stafford. We share ownership in the boat – there are about 12 owners each of whom get 3 weeks a year onboard. We had booked the week starting 29th October so when it was decided to move to a new base, we volunteered to undertake the task. The route is a challenging week’s run – particularly at this time of year when the sun sets early. The logistics are quite challenging, too – getting cars and people in the right place at the right time!

I kept my GPS running for the whole trip so we have a detailed record of the journey – except, of course, inside the tunnels when there’s no signal from the satellites. There was limited or no internet or 3G phone access for much of the journey so recording in real time wasn’t practical but I’ll try to go through the details with some images of the canals over the next few days.

Here’s a map showing the GPS track of the entire journey – which we did complete slightly ahead of schedule.

Skew bridges

2011-10-08T22:56:00.004+01:00

Most canal bridges are at right angles to the waterway, however, sometimes the bridge has to be built at an angle. Bridge 19 on the Grand Union just north of Napton junction is one such bridge. Here’s the aerial view.

This bridge, like most on the canals, has a brick arch. Skew arches, as they are called, are much more complex than simple bridges. In some skew bridges, the bricks in the arch are laid parallel to the canal. This results in the bricks at the end of the arch being stepped. Most skew bridges, however, are built like bridge 19 with the courses of bricks at right angles to the walls.

The result is that the bricks are laid at an angle to the springers - the point at which the arches spring from the walls, as shown in these photos. I think this means that each course of bricks is curved to follow the curvature of the arch. These skew bridges add another dimension to the beauty of the canals.

There’s more about skew arches on the wikipedia web site at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skew_arch

Canal bridges again

2011-10-05T00:03:00.002+01:00

A few of the old bridges are in a pretty poor state...

... but some have been rebuilt very sensitively - this one has a new concrete arch but still retains the classic style.

Talking about classic style, how about bridge 103 on the Grand Union canal. Rather grander than the normal accommodation bridge: perhaps the landowner wanted something special. The web site CanalPlan just says ‘Bridge 103 is a minor waterways feature on the Grand Union Canal’ but gives no more information. Some other references say it was know as the ‘New Bridge’

More canal bridge art

2011-09-21T23:49:00.002+01:00

Lots of the bridges in the Rugby area have artworks on the sides - and I don’t mean the graffiti! Many of them feature the game of rugby, of course.

Incidentally, this bridge is less than 3 miles from the home of the friend who accompanied us. She’s able to tell her friends when asked where she’s been on holiday that she visited Rugby! I had the same experience a few years ago when we visited Aylesbury - by canal!

This is the remains of a railway bridge with some railway art.

Tunnel of Light

2011-09-13T23:46:00.003+01:00

The 189 metre long Newbold Tunnel, on the Oxford Canal at Newbold on Avon, near Rugby, has been fitted with coloured lights. Originally installed in 2005 as part of the Rugby's celebration of the Hindu Festival of Light, Diwali, the lights still operate during the day and provide a fascinating background to what is usually a rather gloomy part of a canal cruise. Here by comparison is the Braunston tunnel – the light is an approaching boat (isn't there some saying about the light at the end of the tunnel?) This picture was taken about 20 minutes before we emerged from the tunnel. Braunston is longer, of course.

The lights are turned off at night for the bats. The tunnel is pretty well semicircular so the reflections form a full circle of light.

Great – but is it art?

Bridges on the Canals

2011-09-12T23:49:00.002+01:00

We've just spent a few days on the Oxford and Grand Union canals. The bridges on this stretch show a range of interesting engineering – and artistic – enterprise. I snapped lots of them: I'll post these bridges over the next few days.

Let's start with the classical accommodation bridge which, although fairly basic, was a significant engineering task in its day and has a simple elegance. There are dozens in this style – the minimum width to allow a boat to pass and a towpath for the horse.

The cast iron bridges – this one is over the branch to Rugby Wharf – are amongst the most beautiful constructions along the canal.

This bridge is listed – the details of the listing can be found here.

Car park signs at Church

2011-09-01T23:55:00.000+01:00

Installed today

Wyred apple juice – from tree to bottle

2011-08-26T22:49:00.003+01:00

… well, from picked to bottle.

Wyred, the Church youth group are generating donations for their trip to Africa next summer. They've been offered apples to make apple juice to sell. The apples are on trees so they have to pick them. They're then transported to Chiltern Ridge where they are pressed and bottled. Chiltern Ridge have a wonderful service: they press, pasteurise and bottle apple juice from apples delivered to the farm.

The Wyred apple juice is selling like hot cakes - £3 a bottle or 4 for £2.50. It's available after services, at cream teas or from the Church office.

Wyred's planned trip is described in more detail on the Church web site missendenchurch.org.uk

The apples

The press at Chiltern Ridge

Bottling the juice

Bat watch

2011-08-25T23:31:00.001+01:00

Great fun tonight: a bat watch up at Church. After hearing a fascinating talk about bats and seeing some specimens, we were given detectors and waited for the bats to appear. Eventually we heard some pipistrelles and then saw them flying round the outside of the Church. In spite of evidence in the Church – bat droppings – we failed to detect any inside.

Pipistrelle bat

The IBM PC is 30 years old today

2011-08-12T11:04:00.000+01:00

and is still with us – just about! It's demise has been forecast for some time, particularly with the advent of smart phones and tablets however, I think the PC in some form will be round for some time. To misquote Mark Twain “the report of its death was an exaggeration.” There's an interesting article quoting one of the original design engineers Mark Dean here. Mark's point is that the interest is moving from the technology itself to what is behind it. We've seen that in the recent riots where communications through social media enabled the mobs to gather rapidly.

My view about the 'improved' communications that the new technology enables is that it often inhibits good communication between people: because they can be in touch all the time, they don't communicate. A case of less is more (or the reverse.) I'm not arguing for going back, rather for learning to live better in this new joined-up world.

Speaking of Mark Twain, one quote of his I like is “I don't understand all this fuss about giving up smoking: I've done it dozens of times”

It's a bit calmer in Little Hampden...

2011-08-09T23:23:00.001+01:00

no riots here – yet. Don started the harvest this afternoon. I hope the weather lasts but the forecast isn't too good.

Managing volunteers

2011-07-17T23:48:00.004+01:00

Now for something a little more serious. I've been wondering for some time how to apply some of the management techniques used in the commercial world to volunteers. The problems are the same: how to ensure planned activities are completed successfully without too much hassle; how to ensure people use their skills, contribute to the overall aims of the organisation and are happy in discharging the responsibilities they have taken on. Managing activities is reasonably straightforward: it involves planning all aspects of the activities to an appropriate level of detail communicating the plans to people involved and then following the plans to completion. Of course, it's not quite as simple as that because things change – or go wrong – during the project. But with well thought-through plans, success should follow.

Managing people when they are volunteers is a little more tricky. Employees can usually be expected to do more or less as asked and in general will have been selected because their skills and aspirations match the requirements of the organisation. Volunteers' commitments are often uncertain, as are their pressures and aspirations. There's a risk that if we start asking people how they are getting on, they'll immediately interpret this as interfering bureaucracy or will take it as an opportunity to give up or move on to something different.

But we're going to give it a try. We're going to start recording and reviewing plans for significant events in Church, ad we're going to meet with volunteers to see how they are getting on with their roles and what extra support would help them. We hope this will enable us to make volunteers' jobs easier. We're also hopeful that we'll be able to gather positive suggestions and ideas and spread these around the group.
I'll keep you posted.

While looking for something to illustrate this post I came across this:

I hope we can be clearer than this!

Fun

2011-07-12T23:56:00.001+01:00

How's this for an fun at the fete?

A great school fete at Tring. One of the best stalls was the human fruit machine: three big boxes each with a youngster hidden. They had a choice of insects (the theme of the fete). You paid your 10p and they jumped up showing one of their insect pictures. If two were the same, you won a sweet!

Celebration

2011-06-28T00:20:00.000+01:00

Pimms at Little Hampden last week

Barbecue at Great Missenden this Sunday

Thank you reception

2011-06-24T23:59:00.002+01:00

I think everyone enjoyed tonight’s reception to thank all who contributed to our Appeal.

And a few fun pics - captions?

Little Hampden Bell

2011-06-19T23:32:00.004+01:00

We had a visit from Matthew Smith on Friday evening. Matthew is a bellringer at kimble but he is currently visiting all the bells in Bucks to collect inscriptions so that he can update the 1897 book “The Church Bells of Buckinghamshire” written by Alfred Cocks.

Our bell at Little Hampden, which is mounted in the first floor of the timber-framed porch, is dated 1791 and was cast by Thomas Mears of London. Matthew reported that this was the year that Thomas took over the foundry from his father so our bell is one of his first. The bell is slung between two wooden beams with no metal bearings. It looks as if the original mounting was nearer the North end of the porch where there are grooves in the beams and another hole for the bellrope in the floor beams. The speculation is that these grooves were wearing too close to the bottom of the beam so rather than repairing them, the bell was simply moved and hung on two new beams. The new beams appear to have been cut with a circular saw whereas the original would have been cut by hand.

Matthew has worked with bells but is currently employed by Smith of Derby - clockmakers. Not watchmakers - but Church and Tower clocks. Have a look at their web site www.smithofderby.com.

Our bell is not very secure and Matthew is going to quote for repairing it so we can ring it at services and weddings. I’ll keep you posted.

Alfred Cocks sounds an interesting character. As well as writing “The Church Bells of Buckinghamshire; Their Inscriptions, Founders, Uses and Traditions, Etc.” to give it it’s full title, he was secretary of the Buckinghamshire Archeological Society. Their history has two interesting references:

Alfred Cocks had published his monumental Church Bells of Buckinghamshire in 1897, a work of enduring scholarship, and his many contributions to Records ranging from Great Marlow Church in 1866 to the Penn version of the Mummers play forty years later were always scholarly. On a lighter note his three articles which he called Contributions to a Buckinghamshire Vocabulary (VII. 61 and 284, IX. 124) where he records local dialect, then rapidly being lost, make almost compulsive reading.
Crabbling: Noise of a pot boiling
Unmournful: Very, 'She wus unmournful ugly'
Drotchek: Slut
Cribbling: Lame 'He goes proper cribbling'
Clats: Horse droppings
Mizzy-muzzy: 'My poor head's all ofu mizzy-muzzy'
...
Secretaries:
1896-1908 ALFRED HENEAGE COCKS (1864-1928) FSA. He was a meticulous scholar and a distinguished naturalist who contributed much to the Society but was a prickly colleague. His many articles cover a wide field but he is best remembered for the monumental The Church Bells of Buckinghamshire published in 1897 which whilst a work of scrupulous scholarship is not improved by the alarming varieties of typeface which he insisted on using.

100 years of IBM

2011-06-16T23:36:00.000+01:00

IBM is 100 years old today. It struck me that I worked for IBM for one third of this time! It was a good company to work for and much more than a technology company. The IBM 100 web sites list lots of the company's interesting achievements. As well as lots of technical ones there were many early employment and management innovations that were later adopted by other organisations. IBM employed its first disabled employee in 1914, it had an equal employment opportunity policy from 1953, well before the legislation required it.

The technical innovations are significant, too: early commercial digital computers, the PC, the floppy disk, the selectric (golfball) typewriter, the term 'word processing', fractal geometry, the scanning tunnelling microscope, laser surgery and the UPC barcode. Have a look at the IBM 100 icons of progress web site

Jacqui’s new handbag

2011-06-15T00:18:00.001+01:00

I’ve been helping Jacqui and Nadine with their web site:

While agreeing the photos for the site this morning, Jacqui’s new handbag arrived. Her expression says it all!

But they did settle down to some work eventually...

Flower festival

2011-06-04T17:13:00.000+01:00

First pictures

Inspiring youngsters - again

2011-06-02T23:48:00.003+01:00

Last Saturday saw the first fundraising event run by our Wyred youth group in support of their plan to visit Africa in the summer of 2012. They organised a dinner in the Oldham Hall - they made no charge but donations were requested. The evening was a great success and the Wyred team were extremely professional - very inspirational.

Inspiring youngsters

2011-05-29T23:02:00.001+01:00

I’m not very often moved by an article in the papers but this one from Friday really got to me:

Mrs Obama taught me Oxford can be more than a dream

She made me feel so confident I forgot about the cameras

Aneesah Siddiqui
The Times, May 27 2011 12:01AM

Before Wednesday Oxford University was totally beyond my aspirations. I knew about its elite status, but I believed that, because of the expense, I would never get there. After my unbelievable experience I now believe that any money paid to attend this university would be worth it. No price can be put on such an amazing education, surely?

On the coach from our school to Oxford to meet Michelle Obama, the atmosphere was electric. First we took part in a workshop led by three inspirational female academics. The physics lecturer really connected with me because I love science — I’m taking food technology, health and social care at GCSE and I began to think about working with her one day. This day was already like a dream.

Lunch at Wadham College was incredible. I was captivated by the room, the stained glass, the portraits, the people who had been there through history. It seemed wrong to be sitting eating sandwiches, as it felt as if the room had only been used for banquets! This was a good opportunity to talk to the Oxford University mentors looking after us. I was paired with a PPE student who said that he would help with my application when the time comes. He advised me to go for hard subjects at A level, so now I’m going to put my head down and do maths, physics and biology.

When we were walking to the room where we would meet Mrs Obama, I was petrified. My hands were shaking. When she finally came through the door we were beaming. I finally met my role model. She looked angelic in white. When she was delivering her speech, I was transfixed. I couldn’t believe that she cared so much about my school in Islington. I was amazed at how close I was to her and when she came to sit with us, I was just a few seats away.

When we began to ask questions, I was longing for my turn. I was overwhelmed as she gave me her microphone, I was holding Mrs Obama’s microphone: how amazing was that? As I asked my question she made me feel so confident that I forgot there were cameras in the room. I felt as if we were speaking in private — that’s how comforting she was. She made me forget my fears. She said that we were all future leaders and must start now. Then she gave us each a long heartfelt hug and she smelt lovely.

Before I met Mrs Obama I thought that I would have an ordinary job. But now I want to be something that really makes a difference in the world. My name is Aneesah Siddiqui. If I hadn’t met Michelle Obama, you would probably have never heard it. But now — just watch this space!

Aneesah Siddiqui, 15, is a pupil at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School, North London

Does it really take someone with Michelle Obama’s image and character to inspire our children?

Vauban at Saint-Martin-de-Ré

2011-05-16T23:53:00.002+01:00

We spent two days at St-Martin-de-Ré, on Ile de Ré, an island in the Atlantic just off La Rochelle. I say an island but it is now connected to the mainland via a 2.9 kilometre bridge. The island was of strategic importance and St Martin was fortified in the 1620s by order of Cardinal Richelieu. The original fortifications are said to have inspired Vauban - the architect of the French defensive buildings.

In 1627, an English invasion force commanded by the Duke of Buckingham(!) attacked the island in order to relieve the Siege of La Rochelle. After three months of fighting against the French under Marshal Toiras, the Duke was forced to withdraw in defeat. Vauban was engaged to strengthen the fortifications and the result is the walls which today surround the town, together with a stronger fortress that is now a prison. The fortress has it’s own small but well defended harbour - presumably to supply the garrisons posted there.

Today St-Martin-de-Ré is a holiday destination although entry is still defended: cars can’t enter the inner area unless they can pass the barrier. We had to park outside and negotiate the code from our hotel but I don’t think this aimed at keeping the English out!

Saumur and the Loire

2011-05-14T23:23:00.000+01:00

We’re just back from a few days in France. The first few days were at Saumur in the Loire valley. We’re always drawn to the magic of the Loire - the river glides through the countryside and seems to be unchanged for centuries. The Chateaux are equally magical - can you believe this really exists?

The crafts which constructed these buildings are still being taught today - the building school in Saumur was doing a masonry lesson...

Looking back over Easter and Lent

2011-05-01T23:57:00.004+01:00

Phew, over 2 weeks since I blogged - but it’s been a busy time. OK, so I failed to keep to the Love Life Live Lent activities - although I did manage quite a few. And Zone Plus, the week before Holy Week, was, I think, a success. There are lots of pictures on the web site - www.zoneplus.org.uk. We had nearly 50 youngsters involved and the grinning faces say it all!

Then there was the reading of the Gospels from the King James bible. Very moving for everyone and fascinating to hear the whole story, rather than just extracts. On of the regular volunteer Church cleaners has reported that when he is mopping the floor or whatever he feels in touch with people who have looked after the building - and worshipped there - for hundreds of years. I think we felt the same - the readings will be echoing round the stonework...

The Easter services were good, too. Quiet until Easter day - and then the Churches were full and joyful. Then a day afloat - but mainly spent clearing bird poo off the deck! The oystercatchers are flourishing and look and sound wonderful - until they land en masse on the deck! They completely ignored a neighbouring owner’s attempt to keep them off with yards and yards of strings with attached orange ribbons.

So I think I have caught up at last - at least until I started to draft an application for a grant for the youth activities. But I think we are ticking enough boxes against the Chiltern District Council’s criteria - time will tell!

Zone Plus day 1

2011-04-13T00:36:00.000+01:00

Little Hampden - yet again

2011-04-06T23:53:00.003+01:00

‘Go for a walk in your neighbourhood and pray about what you see’ says one of the actions this week. Little Hampden looked wonderful today with a blue sky and the trees coming out. I resisted getting out my camera (too busy anyway!) But I did walk down to neighbours - who were out - and walking back spotted the new moon in the evening sky.

Science and posters

2011-04-05T23:44:00.004+01:00

Volunteer driving this morning so I had 30 minutes or so waiting in Hospital. I used these to look through the science for children books and to generate a list for the science afternoon at Zone Plus next week. Lots of ideas - I think I have enough. I’ve tried a few out. Yesterday we went to Maplin in Aylesbury for some crocodile clips. I made up some cables today for use with a lemon battery. Two different coins (or two different metals) in a lemon (or other acid) will generate electricity. I tried this with a 2p piece, a 10p piece and an eggcup of vinegar. Not enough to drive anything significant but the meter definitely moved! With 3 lemons the voltage should be measurable and may light up a LED. I’ve also tried out the balloon on bottle experiment to show that air expands and contracts. Half-inflate a balloon and fix it on the top of a plastic bottle. Run the hot tap onto the bottle and the balloon expands. Dip the bottle in iced water and it contracts. Richard has made some heavier weights for the Foucault pendulum so I’ll have to try these out soon.

The lady on the hospital run was a very sprightly 86-year-old so I took advantage of driving past Stoke Mandeville Church to drop off a poster for the Gospel Readings. We diverted a little to Ellesborough for another poster. I think my passenger enjoyed the round trip. I don’t think this aligns with any of the LLLL actions but I feel it’s very much in the spirit!

I also managed to ‘buy something that’s in season in a local shop’ today - potatoes, apples and some wonderful Cornish goat’s cheese. The potatoes are locals, the cheese isn’t from too far away but think the apples were from France - they had ‘le crunch’ stickers.

Birthdays and Foucault’s pendulum

2011-04-03T23:45:00.001+01:00

We collected birthdays at Church today - and I checked in case. Two pairs in 34 so with a bit of luck shuffling and selecting a random 22 or so should end up with at last one pair.

We tried the pendulum: swing is OK but the weight wasn’t enough to sustain the swing long enough to see the rotation. At our latitude, the pendulum would completely rotate in about 31 hours so in 1 hour it should move 11 degrees. Richard has now made two heavier weights so we’ll have another try this week. If it won’t swing long enough, we can calculate the acceleration due to gravity using a smaller pendulum then measure the height of the ceiling using the period of the larger one.

Defrost, global warming and April Fool

2011-04-02T23:34:00.002+01:00

I “defrosted the freezer” yesterday. I was also prompted to find out how climate change affects poor countries. We only have to look back over the last few months to see a number of global catastrophes: I don’t think the earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand can be linked to the climate but what about the extensive floods in Australia, Philippines, South Africa, Brazil and Sri Lanka? It’s easy to say these are statistical exceptions but isn’t it worth modifying our behaviour to reduce the chance of these appalling disasters. The Christian Aid website has lots of examples of how they are helping poorer countries ameliorate the effects of the changes to the climate.

On a lighter note, I’ve had some fun with a friend over the last couple of days. Last year he paid a particularly clever April fool trick just as we were planning the firs Zone Plus. The suggestion was that there was an alternative route for HS2 in tunnels under the Churchyard and they wanted to drill trial borings during time when the children would be around. We eventually rumbled the scam - and offered new adventures for Zone Plus including driving diggers round the Churchyard. So I invented a new project that Rosie and the Bishop wanted us to pilot: a screen in Church for a live Twitter feed during services. I asked Mike to handle the communications aspects. We exchanged e-mails including a promise from a friend of the loan of equipment from another Church that had tried it out. However, the fun ended with a wonderful mock-up screen - click on it to see full-size:

The slight worry is that when I told Rosie I was planning this she thought a live Twitter feed might be a good idea....

Walk - and birthday conundrum

2011-03-31T23:56:00.003+01:00

I managed ‘Walk a route you would normally drive’ today - instead of driving up to Church on the way to Young Enterprise at the Misbourne I parked in school and walked up. Not a big deal, I don’t think. I suppose I should have walked all the way from Little Hampden - but that’s too challenging.

I’ve also started collecting science experiments for Zone Plus. We’re going to try a Foucault’s Pendulum in the tower. I’m also going to try the birthday conundrum. We’ll ask people on Church on Sunday morning to record their birthdays (not the year - that wouldn’t be fair!) We’ll then use a random selection of these to see how many are needed to to find two with the same birthday. Statistically, the chances are 50% with 23 people. I’ve tried it a number of times and always done better than this. The students in this year’s YE company - 22 of them - are a good example. There is one pair of twins which I don’t think counts but there are two other matching birthdays. If you’re on Facebook, next time it’s one of your friend’s birthdays, look at all of them. You have to have enough friends, of course! I have several matches in mine, not just the twins.

There’s a link on the Zone plus website to more information.

Slow down

2011-03-28T23:51:00.005+01:00

Another busy day but I managed to “Slow down and savour an experience” today. Walking down to Louise to do her CRB identity check I met Mark our local architect. We ambled down the lane, chatting about the projects that he’s still getting with the local schools, and the East wall of Little Hampden Church which may be moving sightly. Not very consequential but very enjoyable!

I’ve known Louise for several years since she’s been living in the village but in spite of this I had to check her address on the form against a bank statement: best to follow the instructions!

Disconnected day

2011-03-27T23:48:00.000+01:00

Today I succeeded to “Limit myself to checking e-mails only once” I have to admit this was mainly because of time pressures. This morning, as well as the services at Gt Missenden and Little Hampden, we had a group of cyclists visiting St Peter & St Paul. They were part of a sponsored cycle ride from Westminster Abbey to Islip. The ride was organised by the village; the proceeds are being slit equally between the local school and a new screen, designed by Nicholas Mynheer in the tower of the Church of St Nicholas at Islip. More details on the village web site: www.islip.org.uk. The cyclists were stopping at SSPP for refreshments (bacon butties) and an opportunity to view our screen - also designed by Nicholas Mynheer, of course.

We also had two baptisms so the Church was full and parking busy. The cyclists were entering the Churchyard by the top gate so we had to stop cars leaving by this way. There wasn’t too much overlap and we managed to allow the worshipers to leave and the cyclists to arrive with no incidents!

The afternoon was spent with all the grandchildren - putting out fires with the hose (water turned off) riding round on tractors, trying out scooters, eating yesterday’s cakes and similar. No time for e-mail. I had to leave early to have a quick visit to Young Enrerprise presentation day. The Misbourne students I’ve been advising didn’t win anything but seemed pleased with what they had achieved. Then a fascinating Lent Forum session with Dr Neil Suggett.

But back to no e-mails (or virtually none) I’ve commented before about how the improved communications we have today don’t actually improve things. Is it because we’re overloaded? Is it because a letter was significant (still is) but an e-mail is trivial? Is it a case of less is more?

In her April letter to the Church Mag, Rosie raises the issue of the Church in the digital era. There are similar points and more - how do we engage people? Are we moving to an e-church? There’s one of these already! Have a look at www.i-church.org

Another week

2011-03-26T22:27:00.002Z

It looks as if I’ve given up blogging - perhaps for Lent! I haven’t achieved much in week 2 of the Love Life Live Lent suggestions and now it’s week 3. I think I can claim “Slow down and savour an experience” We’ve had the grandchildren with us today and I think I’ve spent some time with them. I didn’t help much with the cake making this afternoon - apart from trying out the cakes! The morning was great - warm and sunny - and we had fun filling the bird feeder. We had to chase the squirrel away from the feeder later.

Wonderful sunsets yet again a couple of days ago. Another blessing to be thankful for.

Another busy few days...

2011-03-17T23:52:00.002Z

So much for completing all the Love Life... activities!

We had some friends for dinner last evening. Brian has given up alcohol for lent! We thought of declaring it a Sunday but he was very determined in spite of temptation from the rest of us. I was pleased that I was trying ... Live Lent rather than giving up.

Sunday? If you do the count, Sundays are not included in the 40 days but I think of you give something up for Lent that should include every day - what do you think?

Although it’s been very busy, lots of people have been very supportive so this is one of the “3 blessings of the day and be thankful”

Spring!

2011-03-14T23:38:00.001Z

I know it’s not in the book, but today was such a wonderful day, I’m sure it’s in the spirit of Love Life Live Lent just to enjoy and give thanks for the beauty around us.

Lancaster, Morcambe and queues

2011-03-13T21:46:00.002Z

On Friday I decided to try ‘Give up your place in a queue to someone else’ but with the day we had planned - a walk to see some limestone pavement and an afternoon in Morcambe - this seemed quite a challenge. However, I was driving so I managed to let lots of people out of side roads - the traffic in Lancaster is quite heavy - and let several cars pass me when we were pottering through the lanes. I think this counts?

The morning walk was to Fairy Steps, through the woods and across areas of limestone pavement. The myth of Fairy Steps is that if you can climb to the top without touching the sides, the fairies will grant your wish. Needless to say, no wishes were granted.

Limestone pavements are being preserved because of the unique flora they support. There’s a web site - www.limestone-pavements.org.uk

In the afternoon we visited the newly-restored Midland Hotel at Morcambe. The hotel was the last railway hotel, built in 1933. It had been left to decay until a developer saw the potential. The restoration has certainly been expensive. There is some remaining Eric Gill artwork in the hotel - a frieze in reception, a map in one of the larger rooms and a painting over the wonderful circular staircase. We didn’t get any pictures but there are lots on the web and if you’re a fan of Poirot, you’ll see it in more than one episode. There’s also a website about the restoration www.midlandhotel.org

Lancaster - and no lunch

2011-03-10T18:45:00.001Z

Today I managed ‘Skip meal and give the money to a charity working overseas’ - with the rest of the team enjoying good pub lunch! I’ll put the cost into the Water Aid jamjar when I get home.

We did Lancaster today - the Ashton Memorial, a piece of imperial architecture at the top of the town given by the linoleum magnate in 1904.

We also visited the Priory Church of St Mary.

Lancaster and first Lent activity

2011-03-09T19:03:00.005Z

We’re up in Lancaster with friends for a few days - which will make completing the Love Life Live Lent activities a challenge! I think the best I can do today is to say something nice about someone behind their back!

We’ve only just arrived in Lancaster but went down to look at the John Rennie Aqueduct taking the Lancaster Canal over the river. It’s being restored at considerable expense - today they had started filling it up again after repairing and repointing the stonework. Seeing the stone channel taking the canal across the aqueduct was interesting - normally these aren’t visible because they are full of water.

Lancaster is a cycling town - here’s one for Helen:

And here are some pictures of the aqueduct:

The aqueduct from the riverbank

The aqueduct from the towpath

The trough in the aqueduct

Ian's paper mill

Repairs

Old and new industry

Adrian’s amazing deer - and lent starts

2011-03-09T00:48:00.001Z

Lent starts tomorrow (actually today - it’s 00:37 on Wednesday) I’m going to try to do some of the activities in the Love Life Live Lent book. Archdeacon Karen is following the Christian Aid activities on her blog archdeaconkaren.blogspot.com

Adrian, our local artist blacksmith at Little Hampden forge had made a fantastic full-sized deer (a proper one, not one of these miniature muntjacs) out of horseshoes:

Women’s World Day of Prayer and Lent is coming

2011-03-06T23:42:00.005Z

Friday was the Women’s World Day of Prayer. The service was developed by the women of Chile - the WWDP use a different country each year. The service, led by Tricia and Carolyn from our Church, was well attended although there were only two other males! Carolyn had asked women from local Churches to read the stories from the Chilean women and although sitting in the comfort and security of a Gt Missenden church Chile seemed very remote, some of their difficulties came through. The theme of the service ‘How many loaves have you?’ is based on the women sharing of bread amongst their friends and bread is eaten at every meal and is very much part of every day life.

The local service was held in the Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church in Great Missenden. This is the second service recently that I’ve attended here - we held our midnight service on Christmas eve there because of the snow. While the modern building is very different from traditional Churches, I find it quite inspirational. The interior is very simple with plain brick walls pierced by wall-to-ceiling rectangular windows. The Altar is at the West end which, I think, is unusual. Apparetly (if you believe the information on the web) the east-facing altars were an early Catholic tradition because Jesus’s second coming was expected in the east. However, the flat ceiling rising towards the altar provides a focus for the interior of the building.

The painting of the crucifixion over the altar (shown above with Chilean flags) is by local artist Paul Stevenson. I had found his work a few years ago when I was talking at an Age Concern coffee morning trying to persuade them that the web had lots of fascinating and interesting info. When I first saw the crucifixion, I thought it might be by Stevenson and I was able to confirm this on Friday. Paul sadly died recently but some of his work is on display on the Storm Fine Arts web site here. There’s a short note by the artist himself on the web site of the local Great Missenden art gallery One Church Street.

Interestingly one of the paintings on the Storm Fine art web site is of Llawhaden Castle which I visited many times from home in Tenby. It is one of the castles in the line that separates little England from the rest of Wales which explains why I don’t speak Welsh! Originally built as a fortified palace for the Bishop of St David’s - rather different from current Bishops’ homes!

Lent starts next week. I’m going to try to follow the Love Life Live Lent booklet which has suggested activities for each week. Inspired by the visit to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I’ll also try to visit as many Churches during Lent: I won’t manage to get to many services because of duties at Great Missenden and Little Hampden but I’ll try to report on their design and the spiritual feeling they bring. The Bucks Historic Churches trust's book Bucks’ Favourite Churches is a starter.

Masterchef

2011-02-27T22:57:00.010Z

Great evening yesterday with David Green from the Hoxton Grill.

This is what it’s all about!

More pictures

Spring arrives at Little Hampden

2011-02-18T23:00:00.000Z

Just a few pictures from the last few days...

Worcester Cathedral altar and ecclesiastical colours

2011-02-11T22:21:00.002Z

I’ve been asked about the altar cloth at Worcester. There’s virtually nothing about it on the web. The adjacent notice gives a brief description:

Finding a reference to the ecclesiastical colours was tricky till I found an old news item about the vicar of South Brent and Rattray who died his hair to match the colours as a fundraising stunt a few years ago. The colours are:

Epiphany: green, for life
Easter: gold and white, for celebration
Pentecost: red, fire of the Holy Spirit
Trinity: green, for lushness
Advent/Lent, purple for power, coming of the King

The Love Life Live Lent website gives a slightly different interpretation of the colour of Lent: The colour for Lent is purple, which means both sorrow because we do wrong, and royalty. Another Lenten fact from LLLL: Some churches decorate their church with grey banners and cloths for the whole season of Lent as a reminder of the grey ashes of Ash Wednesday.

Worcester

2011-02-08T00:08:00.005Z

Great weekend in Worcester with friends. Worcester is a fascinating city with lots of interest. The cathedral, of course, dominates the city.

There’s also an array of secular architecture including one disused Church which is now a Slug and Lettuce.

The Guildhall has a beautiful victorian assembly room. It’s interesting that the tradesmens’ guilds built this as a meeting place for the city and became the leaders of the municipality. Is this an early example of the Big Society?

The corporation fire buckets are still on display - presumably if your house caught fire you ran down to the Guildhall and grabbed one.

The Berkeley almshouses were donated to the city in 1705. They accommodated 12 men and only one woman!

There’s a large new development to the south of the city with a new cable-stayed bridge across the Severn.

Spring in Worcester

2011-02-07T00:26:00.000Z

More tomorrow!

Lent is coming

2011-02-03T23:31:00.003Z

Lent starts in just over four weeks. Shrove Tuesday is 8th March. I’m going to try to follow Love Life Live Lent this year. This is a set of activities - one per day - to encourage people to make a difference. Have a look at the web site www.livelent.net.

There are lots of other Lent activities available. The Christian Aid one has daily activities that make one think about one’s blessings compared with the rest of the world. The website of the Woodlands Junior School in Kent always comes near the top of the list when I Google festivals like Advent and Lent although they haven’t yet updated their page since last year. The have some interesting facts about lent including the significance of the number 40 in the bible:

The rain lasted for 40 days in the mighty flood - Noah
Moses stayed on the Mount Sinai forty days (Ex 24:18)
Jonah gave the people of Ninevah forty days to repent (Jon 3:4)
Jesus, before starting his ministry, spent forty days in the desert in prayer and fasting (Matt 4:2)

The Live Life Live Lent site also has some facts about Lent: The word ‘Lent’ appears to have its beginnings in Anglo-Saxon, where the word means to lengthen, indicating that days are getting longer and spring is coming.

Art - and science

2011-01-29T23:26:00.004Z

Rather random connections tonight. Firstly Neta in her sabbatical while looking after Chris has being doing a painting a day. Here are some examples:

Last Sunday at Junior Church the youngsters had the first of many science experiments: they made hearts (representing Jesus’ love) with candles in them. They then covered the candles with a mug and the candle went out - if they forget Jesus. But the candles could be relit - so Jesus never forgets. We also did the candle under a glass with water in a bowl. The water is sucked up into the glass as the oxygen is burned ad the candles go out when there’s none left. I couldn’t remember what the oxygen converts into but the youngsters enjoyed the experiments and seemed to remember the story.

Back to art: looking at a birch we have in the garden I was reminded of a poem I read as part of O-level (remember that?) Birches by Robert Frost. I googled, of course, and found a site with lots of poetry - www.poets.org. On some of Frost’s poems - not Birches - as well as the text of the poem, the words are displayed in sequence as though they are read - have a look at Mending Wall and Out, out-. Birches is here.

Enterprising mouse

2011-01-23T14:43:00.000Z

I’ve just filled our bird feeder and had a surprise. We keep peanuts in a plastic box in the garden. When I got it out, a mouse had nibbled a hole in the lid. He’d started making a nest - in fact he was still in the box when I took the lid off. He’d been stripping cardboard off a basket and taking it into the box for his nest. I hope he’s not allergic!

More communications - what do we call mission?

2011-01-14T23:17:00.004Z

We’ve been trying to find a concise snappy term to use as the menu item on the Church web site to link to descriptions of each of the organisations that we support. The parish gives a significant proportion of income to various charities and we also support them in other ways. It would be good to provide some more information on each of these organisations. However, we’re rather stuck on a generic name for this. Formally, some of the financial support is called ‘Mission Giving’ - the PCC votes on this every year. But ‘Mission’ has rather limited meaning - and has been hijacked by the business community. More of this below. But there’s more than this: all our Christmas collections are given to good causes and we often do special collections. Additionally, we support causes in other ways - an example is the regular donations of food and toiletries to the hostel for the homeless in Wycombe, the Old Tea Warehouse.

We have fairly limited space on the menu unless we redesign the whole site. Ideas to date include phrases such as “Who we support” “Giving to others” and “Caring beyond our Church family” as well as some simple ones like “Giving” - the latter has been rejected because it may be interpreted as giving to the parish.

Any suggestions? I was tempted to offer a prize for one we use but instead I’ll make a £20 donation to a charity of the suggester’s choice!

While I was googling Mission I found some fun web sites. The first was the Hawaiian Mission - the Aloha Baptist Church. This had a very amusing cartoon recognising that mission at home is as important as any.

Perhaps we need a Chiltern equivalent!

We’ve got four baptisms on Sunday so it’s worth looking at the Baptisms page on their website http://hawaiimissions.net/

The other funnies were two attempts at a corporate mission statement:

- note the funny font - see yesterday’s blog!

Communications

2011-01-13T22:54:00.007Z

A fascinating item on Today today (I’ve apologised about being a Radio 4 listener before) about communications. The claim was that, contrary to an intuitive view, anything written in a font that is difficult to decipher is easier to remember. Have a listen here. I was particularly amused about the handwriting comment: anyone who knows my handwriting understands now that I’m trying to make things really memorable. OK, so you have to be able to decode it before you can remember it! I don’t think there are many font options for this blog so I’ll have to work hard on the content.

Talking about content: I found two wonderful examples of content-free communications, again on Today. We used to joke about the reports produced by the Young Enterprise companies which often contained sections like this: “When we were deciding on a product, we split up into groups and brainstormed ideas. Each group came back with the best 2 or 3 from the brainstorming and the whole company discussed them. We then chose three to work on further.” Great: but this is all process and contains no real information: What were the ideas from each brainstorming? Why were some others rejected? What were the three chosen to work on?

Listen to these two extracts and see if you can deduce what they are actually going to do. The first is the new Family Champion who is leading work to get failing families working - but what is she actually going to do with the families? What has she been doing for the last 20 years? The link is here.

The second is about police action on unsociable behaviour. You need to listen to the second part when Simon Edens is talking. What are the police going to do differently? Listen here.

Now for some good communications - if you didn’t hear Rosie on Countryfile last weekend or this afternoon, here’s the link. If it’s expired, I can send you a copy. Interestingly one of the locations chosen to discuss the wonders of the Chilterns was the John Hampden Memorial - which is just opposite us in Prestwood so the beautiful view they describe is over towards us at Little Hampden. And the reverse view - towards the Memorial - is often featured on this blog - here are some examples.

Still catching up

2011-01-12T23:55:00.003Z

I’ve nearly surfaced after Christmas and New Year. It was a challenging time and although there have been some comments about changing locations, I think we made the right decisions. We also had a great time with the family over Christmas and New Year – including a rather 70s style fondue party on New Year's Eve!

Looking back through the blog to our last canal trip in November, I still can't believe that Michael, who had a great day with us when we went up the Watford Staircase locks, is no longer with us. He had a great day and really enjoyed winding the locks. I have a wonderful picture of him sitting next to me at the party on board to celebrate his birthday. I don't think I'm ready to share this yet.

I've started catching up on helping my computer ladies. Yesterday was a bad e-mail day! One friend had twice lost her whole inbox from a Yahoo webmail (there must be an Oscar Wilde quote about losing one inbox being unfortunate but losing two... can you finish?) I decided to revert to keeping e-mails on her PC – so much for Cloud Computing. However, this was proving impossible. I spent an hour or so on a chat to an assistant and supervisor at Yahoo but failed to get anywhere. It appears that the e-mail had been set up with US Ts & Cs – I can't really understand how – and these preclude accessing the e-mail except through the web unless a premium is paid! They persistently ignored my questions about the validity of the contract in the UK and about assurance about future loss of e-mails. I have a copy of the chat if anyone wants to see it.

The other e-mail problem was the failure of a complete set of business e-mails. I managed to reset the passwords and reactivate them from home but they were still temperamental today. I think we've finally got them fixed. I also installed a printer – this went well: I did have one a while ago that took so long, including calls to the HP help desk, that the owner decided simply to take it back and get a refund! Printing has always been a problem ever since I started in IT and although the printers have got cheaper and better, they are still not perfect!

I'm really keen to help get people online: one of today's friends said she really enjoyed using her computer and the internet “it keeps my mind active” And it helps the charities – we're up to £200 for the Wycombe Winter Night Shelter already this year.

Thinking of quotes, I found another good one today “Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.” Good quote, shame about the author - Niccolo Machiavelli.

Christmas in retrospect - and the blessing

2010-12-29T21:37:00.005Z

Looking back over another snowy Christmas, there were lots of decisions and changes but most things seem to have gone very well. The Christmas Eve Midnight Communion, which we decided this year to move 30 minutes earlier to 11:00pm so that people were not too late getting home, was moved to the Roman Catholic Church, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in Great Missenden. Father Tim was very supportive when we asked him. However, we had to move back again to 11:30 as there was another service at 10:00 pm. Access to the Church was much safer than the road up to St Peter & St Paul, particularly in the dark. The team brought all the necessary kit down in time, although we only just found the service booklets in time. We used the local hymn books - they have over 600 hymns! I found the service in the 1960s building quite inspirational. Very different, of course, from mediaeval architecture. The roof in IHM slopes upwards towards the altar - very much the opposite to the rather confined feeling of older chancels. I noticed that IHM doesn’t point to the East - I guess this was to make the most of the site.

Earlier on Christmas Eve, the Crib Service had been moved to the school. I didn’t attend this but the reports were very positive and the photos I’ve seen looked great. I hear the star was Rosie’s granddaughter. The snow around the school had to be cleared in time for the service: a few phone calls rounded up a gang of helpers at very short notice - thanks!

The early Christmas Day Communion was moved to the Oldham Hall and Bishop Alan took the service. Again, I didn’t make it. Margaret managed her communion kit again for this service. The Christmas Communion was held in St Peter & St Paul and was well attended by nearly 300 worshippers. We had a team of car parkers (actually non-car parkers) preventing cars driving up to Church where the parking was very limited. But everyone had heeded the warning and lots of people parked in the village and walked up in good time. We had e-mailed and phoned round as many people as possible and I’m sure this helped. Several people thanked me for the phone calls.

We decided to hold the Sunday service up at the Church as the access was improving all the time. By Tuesday, we were able to clear enough of the carpark for guests at the wedding blessing of Dalisay and Bryan.

Earlier in the Christmas season the concerts of the Great Missenden Choral Society and the Roald Dahl Foundation had to be cancelled. Although we weren’t directly involved in these, we were sorry that these two events which we were to host were not able to continue. There’s much talk about people being risk-averse these days but I don’t think any of our changes or cancellations were inappropriate. I think some people were unhappy about the changes but I enjoyed them - but I guess I’m much more used to change, having worked for so many years in a very dynamic environment.

A very big ‘thank you’ is due to everyone who helped with such an eventful few weeks. And it’s not over yet: we plan to hold the cancelled 9 lessons and carols service, complete with mulled wine and mince pies on Epiphany - 6:00pm on Sunday 2nd January.

Our family Christmas was fun but uneventful. We are having a few days of peace before they all descend on us again for new year. We can see the carpet again now it’s free of lego!

The sun came out on Sunday allowing us a little time to play in the snow and take some more pictures of the beauty of Little Hampden.

Decisions...

2010-12-23T23:38:00.003Z

The snow is still very much around. There's a lot of pressure to keep services in the Church at Great Missenden but with snow like this we can't take the risk. So all but the 10:00am on Christmas Day will be held elsewhere.

Quite a weekend

2010-12-19T23:13:00.005Z

The same as last year: snow on the weekend before Christmas. This time we had a wedding at Gt Missenden. Paul, who's son was to be married, arranged a gang of helpers and a tractor to clear the access and spread the extra grit we'd persuaded the council to deliver. Together with some Church volunteers, we managed to achieve this by mid morning – but the snow was starting to fall. We had already arranged contingency plans for an organist and arranged for Vicar Rosie to be collected by a 4x4. Both of these turned out to have been good decisions! Paul had hired a 4wd minibus to relay guests to and from the Church. I hear the wedding went very well, although they were late starting and several guests failed to arrive.

By the afternoon we'd had a very heavy snowfall – at least 8 inches (20cm) at Little Hampden. So some phone calls and decisions: the 8am service on Sunday had been cancelled. We decided to move the 10am down from the Church to the Oldham Hall in the village and to take a decision on the planned 6pm service of lessons and carols on Sunday morning. Communicating with everybody was a challenge: we e-mailed round regularly and put updates on the web site. Not everyone is into these communication methods but we hope that those who are told their less techie friends.

Meanwhile we were prepared to hold another DIY Carol Service at Little Hampden. Geoff was available to play our new organ (and was, I believe, delighted to do so) We had e-mailed round the village inviting all to attend and suggesting that any children who had nativity costumes should turn up. In the event we had a donkey, a king and two angels. We also had an impromptu shepherd. Brenda improvised a nativity getting us to imagine the missing players. We had a full Church for the service which ended with the messy grace!

Cancelling the 6pm service at Great Missenden was the right decision in view of the weather – the roads and pavements are still very dangerous. We're all sorry fr the choir who have been practising but we'll try to include some of their work in the Christmas Eve service – weather permitting.

So I was able to spend some time at Little Hampden where the snow is beautiful and the sunset and moon coming up were wonderful.

Christmas trees again – what's that smell?

2010-12-18T14:39:00.002Z

Just received this from Graham: “During preparations For the Christmas Tree Festival (to be exact 10 mins before the doors opened on Saturday) an unpleasant odour was noticed, near the main door. Call in the ‘staff’ for a decision and before you could blink the metal floor covers were up, a torch had appeared and the offending rodent (to be precise ‘an ex rodent’) was spotted. Surgical instruments were considered but in the end a few ‘digits’ and a plastic bag, did the trick. Alas your correspondent was not allowed out of the tea bar for the internment!”

Church access cleared for the wedding

2010-12-18T12:51:00.002Z

… we hope! A big “thank you” to all the helpers.

And this is what it's like at Little Hampden and about noon!

An exciting weekend to look forward to

2010-12-17T23:05:00.002Z

With bad weather forecast – and here – it's going to be an exciting weekend. We've had about 2 inches (OK, 5cm) of snow and it's now very cold – minus 6° C at Little Hampden. Tomorrow there's a wedding at Great Missenden and on Sunday, two Carol Services as well as the 10:00 communion. The forecast is for more snow tonight but it's not certain that it will come as far north as us. We've already cancelled the 8:00am service. With very heavy frost expected overnight it's unreasonable to expect people to travel early.

We've had an extra delivery of grit thanks to the council and are arranging a work party on Saturday morning to clear snow or spread grit or both. The wedding family have offered to help and have been making special arrangements to get guests up and down the hill.

The Dahl Foundation have their concert on Saturday evening. Their web site says they will be making a decision in the morning about whether to go ahead or not. I guess they'll cancel if we do have extra snow overnight.

Which leaves Sunday....

Christmas trees

2010-12-12T23:32:00.003Z

A successful weekend – here are some images...

Rosie opening the festival

Christmas Tree Festival

2010-12-09T23:46:00.005Z

Preparations for the festival are well advanced and some lovely trees are already decorated. The festival opens tomorrow (Friday) evening from 7 to 9pm when the Choir will be singing and mulled wines and mince pies are available. Saturday opening times are 10am to 6pm and on Sunday the festival will open at 12:30pm. At 3pm the Sticna Youth Choir from Slvovenia will be giving a short concert.

Here are some of the preparations and trees – more tomorrow

Nearly a week with no e-mail!

2010-12-05T23:40:00.002Z

We managed to get away this week in spite of the weather. We were planning to visit Reims – for the Christmas Market and, of course, the champagne. The plan was to cross the channel on Tuesday and drive on to Reims – it's almost exactly 300 miles from home. However, the weather forecast on Sunday evening wasn't promising so we made a quick decision to zoom down to Dover on Monday afternoon and cross earlier on Tuesday. This turned out to be an excellent decision as Kent was probably virtually impassible by Tuesday.

More on the trip later – but I managed without any internet access for nearly a week. I missed a lot of excitement while concerts and services at Church were cancelled or changed – and I'm sorry to have left the rest of the staff with these difficulties but they seem to have managed very well without me. When I logged on today I had an inbox of about 280 e-mails. Quite a lot of junk was easy to get rid of and with some ruthless deletion I managed to get the list down to under 100. That's about manageable so my first few days of finding time has been fairly successful – although I'm sure the rest of the Church team may not agree!

And Reims? Cold, the Christmas Market was as before: wonderful atmosphere but the usual mixture of stuff – I think the only thing we bought in the market was some mustard from a new local company. The fizz was great, of course and the fields of vines as extensive as ever. Not quite like these:

Advent is nearly here

2010-11-28T23:53:00.002Z

… or has actually arrived – we had our Advent Carol service tonight. I've failed again to put together an Advent calendar but I'll try to post most days in December. I'll probably have to miss the first few days as we're away with no wifi access.

It's been a busy weekend. The Abbeyfield House in Missenden (a home for older people) held it's Christmas Opera Festival on Saturday. A week or so ago we realised that the High Street – and therefore the main access to the Church – was to be closed for the annual Dickensian Evening supported by the local council. I managed to negotiate with the School that we could offer additional access through the playground – provided we patrolled it. So Don and I met at 6:30 well padded against the cold (at least it was dry) and waited to help the audience through. However, the extra signage that the Abbeyfield people had provided seemed to work well and we had no takers! So once we saw that the road was reopened, we packed up and went to our warm homes.

The day had started with opening the Church and helping (watching!) Adey replace some bulbs in the Church. We're gradually changing over to energy saver bulbs although we have a stock of tungsten filament bulbs – I'm not sure what to do with these. Keeping them till they are no longer available and ebaying them at a profit for funds doesn't seem right! We took advantage of the scaffolding to replace some PAR bulbs with long-life ones. They claim 15,000 hours! We'll see (or maybe not)

This morning, I set up the projector and screen in Church only to be told 10 minutes before the service that it wasn't needed! We also had no-shows or late shows from a number of volunteers this morning. I think it's a symptom or the unstructured life everyone seems to lead these days. I'm not sure how to fix this: text reminders, asking people who swap to tell us are possibilities but it's all more work. I have before now identified the replacement lesson reader at Evensong by spotting someone who was poring over the bible before the start of the service.

The Little Hampden matins went well although was quieter than usual. Graeme played the new organ – including a lovely piece of Bach after the service. This evening's Advent Carol service was lovely, too, with Tricia and Carolyn leading quietly giving us time to contemplate. We had a slight disconnection at the end when the clergy left in one direction and the choir the other. But I don't think anyone minded. The mulled wine and mince pies – rather 11th hour – went down very well although I did manage to break a glass when helping Helen in the kitchen. Not enough damage, I think, to be banned in future!

So a busy but not particularly eventful weekend.

Leadership and teamworking – we tried tonight

2010-11-22T23:30:00.003Z

As promised, we tried some of the lessons from Saturday at our full staff meeting tonight. The meeting, following the pattern from the previous one, was held over a simple bring and share supper. This in itself is a relaxing format, encouraging participation, albeit with some mouthful mumbling towards the start!

We started with two handouts: the first contained a vision statement and the Willow Creek quotation – see Saturday's blog. The vision had been developed several years ago and, although appearing on regular newssheets etc, is not at the front of people's minds. The second handout identified a set of leadership skills with the opportunity for each member to assess their standard on a scale of 1 to 10, together with a target score (which may be higher or lower than the current) and a space for an action plan to increase or decrease their current score by 1 point. We didn't spend much time on these: it was suggested that everyone has a go at scoring themselves after the meeting.

We also discussed the “Yes, and” concept – and I had provided a penalty box.

Then we got into the meat of the meeting (and the supper!) During the following 90 minutes or so we covered a number of significant issues with very wide-ranging discussion, mostly very much to the point. Everyone participated very openly and in general the debate was positive. We didn't use the penalty box in anger although there were a number of times when the discussion was nearer “yes, but” rather than “yes, and.” Nevertheless we came to a number of very positive decisions or agreed on a set of actions to resolve the issues.

After the meeting proper, I used a technique I have used with Young Enterprise when reviewing their progress: I asked each member to spend one minute recording what had gone well for them and what had gone badly. The comments were very encouraging. In summary, the following went well: covered lots, everyone participated, got results from discussions, fellowship, eye contact, open – no “under-table” chat, everyone was allowed to speak, plans of action, aims/vision clear, team effort; these were the 'went badly' items: diverted into unnecessary detail, wandering, got lost somewhere in choir discussion, talking over/2 meetings.

So, much more positive than negative. And in the more general comments I sensed that everyone thought it was a very good meeting. The only actions we could agree to build on the positives and fix the negatives were to have a published agenda for the next meeting, and for everyone to send items in for this ahead of the meeting.

Leadership

2010-11-20T23:45:00.002Z

I've had a fascinating day at an Oxford Diocesan course “Leadership and All That Jazz” The premise of the course is that leadership skills and techniques can be learned from the world of music. Led by Alex Steele, the day was a mixture of discussions about management techniques and improvisations by a group of four jazz musicians. The first surprise was that Alex, a very polished jazz pianist had assembled three other players – drums, saxophone and double base – who had never performed together before. At first this seemed very high risk – but it worked very well at many levels.

The aim of the course was to use music as an example of various leadership techniques. This was very effective but for me there were two other benefits. The first was a simple one: breaking up what can be rather dry material with music made the day much more engaging. However, I picked up much more from the way the musicians operated than the points on the points they were trying to illustrate. Although they had never played together before the musicians formed a team with the clear aim of making music as guided by their leader Alex. The teamworking lesson for me was that members of the team must have a good understanding or their skills and how the interact, and must know what they are trying to achieve. Looking at some of the teams I work with, we're a long way from this.

There was an excellent quote from the bass player: “leave the ego at home and play for the band” Again, clear common aim and understanding how people relate together. Of course I'm sure this is rather simplistic. I'm sure there are competitive musicians who have an additional agenda, just as there are team players with an axe to grind. However, today, the way these four played together was a model.

The session where the players were deliberately restricted was interesting, too. The aim was to support the proposition “ make the most of what you're given” They tried – and succeeded – in playing with severe restrictions: pianist using left hand on black notes only, saxophone left hand only, bass in three strings and drummer using his feet. A real lesson in doing well in spite of difficulties – not as well as if there were none but still acceptable.

But the most meaningful lesson today was a quotation from a bok by Bruce Bugbee, Don Cousins, and Bill Hybells of the Willow Creek Community Church in the US: “The primary call and greatest expression of leadership does not lie in the exercise of the giftedness of the leaders but in the empowerment of God's people. Leaders understand that what they do is not as important as what they cause to be done through God's peopleas a result of the application of leadership gifts.”

We're going to try some of the ideas at Monday's staff meeting....