Fri  1     Welcome back to Rob’s regular reflections. We’re back from France now and getting ready for what they call over there la rentrée (des classes). Over there everything starts in September rather than in January and I must admit that habit is hard to break. Being over there for the latter part of August brought some of that back – supermarkets dominated by displays of exercise books, geometry kits and the like.

 

It was an interesting stay again. We did manage to get into Toulouse for part of one day but the car situation was again problematic for the Powers and we had to borrow a vehicle from some American friends to be able to do that. We went out to the Flunch fast food restaurant  once but ate picnic style most lunchtimes and cooked in the evenings. Most days, the children were in the pool and I was reading American military history from Chuck’s ‘library.’ One good by-product of all this lazing around was that I taught David to play table tennis.

 

We went to one fo their house groups in an old manor house now marooned in the urban sprawl of Lardenne. The man is called de something of de something else and the lady is from Cameroon. The house is done up in Napoleon III style with some French colonial influences. Tonton is in the background raving and muttering. We also took in one Sunday service at the Powers’. There were three sermons – one a bit dodgy abot the Genesis 5 and  taking quite firm positions on a  number of matters most commentators prefer to be cautious on. We also learned that if the Democrats get in next time (American democrats in a Frenchman’s sermon?) the end of the world will ensue given the current Middle-East situation.

 

One interesting development is that Chuck and Cathy have a number of warm contacts in Desvres near Boulogne sur Mer. These came about through their work with a homeless man in Toulouse, the late René Vasseur. Chuck and Cathy are hoping to begin going to Boulogne on monthly visits soon. It is twice as far from Toulouse as it is from Raglan.

 

Sat 2  The weather is on the turn here. I got an Oxfam winter coat out today and said ‘Ya Rooski’ a few times but thought better of it and put it back in the cupboard. Still, when the time comes, I was fortunate enough to find a nice overcoat for a fiver and a midlength jacket for £6.50, both good quality and grey. I’m still enjoying my early mornings. I’m up at the chapel most mornings by 6.15. I’ve given up getting the newspaper first thing even though the paper shop is always open around six. I found I was only managing to read the paper and not anything else. My current routine is to read the Bible in One Year passages and then do some other spiritual reading – currently I’m rereading ‘Ask the Fathers’ by Aelred Squire. That takes me up to about 7.30 and then I go and get the paper. Much better.

 

Coffee Pot this morning started slowly but in the course of the morning I suppose about 20 came in. Three of the windows in the chapel have now been scarfed – a procedure that involves replacing I suppose about the bottom quarter of the window. These repairs are also openable so we won’t need the dehumidifier from now on – or that’s the idea, anyway.

 

I spent some time with Doug Hepburn yesterday hospital visiting. We also talked about Frost at Midnight. The current plan is to make a three-track CD of some of the songs by other people that we perform – ‘You’ve got a Friend’, ‘Both sides now’ etc and take them round to get a few more gigs.

 

Frid 8   I’ve tried to update this page a few times but without success this week – sorry about that.

 

This morning I’ve been planning the launch meeting for ‘What’s so Amazing about Grace’ next Wednesday. I think the material looks very attractive and there are some very simple and clear aims expressed in the introductory segments of the DVD. So, that’s 7.30 next Wednesday at the Fellowship Centre, folks.

 

Met up with the members of the Jonny Quick band last night to see what to do while we wait on Jonny’s condition. I think we’ll be meeting to look through some new numbers. We think we need a bass player now I’ve moved onto keyboards.

 

One of our songs is on the Radio BritFolk website. It’s a series of programmes only available on the internet. They’ve chosen ‘Barriers Down’ from our ‘Frost at Midnight’ album. A very popular song actually, over the years. Here is the link to the programme:   http://www.radiobritfolkhome.co.uk/programme.aspx?path=HuwChidgley1

 

It's a sultry Indian summer's day here and a big crowd came to St Cadoc's for the funeral service of Paul Danzinger - it was cool in there but quite a few had to endure the heat outside. All the familiar faces were there the Crumps, John Tribe and Anne, Charlie and Shirley, Nick Hopkins, dozens of people in their twenties, regulars from the Ship, Elliott and family from the Beaufort, Leighton and Alison from the Crown: well, you get the picture. It was good that all the Quicks felt able to come and in fact Matthew followed the coffin with a spray of white irises.

There was quite a bit of recorded music scattered through the service - 'A Tear' by Massive Attack and near the end 'I feel good' by James Brown and 'Rumours' by Flleetwood Mac but I think the song that made the biggest impression and had many people on the brink of breaking down was one by Sarah McLaghlan called 'Angel'. Her work has a great inward, spiritual quality and it certainly had its place in this setting. There was one congregational hymn, 'One more step along the world I go' and a few poems and written prayers, some with a wry twist on things: 'The Lord said, Smile things could get worse so I did smile and they did get worse.' That kind of thing.

Simon Guest gave the eulogy and he did a good job of identifying and pinning down some of the very mixed emotions we are all feeling right now. One lovely detail was an account of how Paul could play Pool in the Ship (' which they tell me is a local hostelry') and cook chocolate brownies in the pub kitchen at the same time. Sounds like an urban myth in the making to me.

After the church service there was a private burial in the new graveyard and people are inivted to the Ship to celebrate Paul's life. To be honest, though, if only half of the people at church decide to turn up there, they'll drink the place dry in a couple of  hours. It could be quite an evening here, especially if the weather holds.

Mon 11  Went to Horeb Blaenavon yesterday to take their service. This was the church where I did one of my trial sermons I suppose in 1983 or 1984. There was meant to be one small church – Upper Trosnant with Brynmor Jones, Moriah Risca with John Heyward and Horeb with david Hardiman. In fact David was the Association secretary at the time. He said, ‘One will be at Moriah Risca,’  I was writing them down in my diary and repeated, ‘Moriah, Risca.’ ‘One at Upper Trosnant’, ‘Upper Trosnant’ . . . .’And one will be mine here in Blaenavon,’ ‘Meinhir, Blaenavon.’ Dave Miller is the lay pastor there now and Gareth Whitcombe still goes. They had a brilliant guy on piano who is studying music at Oxford but Cath Whitcombe is a great church organist as well. A select congregation of about thirty.

Today of course is 9/11. We heard about the thing at the school gate in Toulouse: Anne Ly told me and we watched it on TV at home. In Toulouse, September 2001 can only mean September 21st though. The factory explosion that killed 29 people and laid waste to a large expanse of the city. An account of that in the next few days, perhaps. I wonder if the media will mark that fifth anniversary? It was certainly hard to get the BMS even to notice the Toulouse explosion it had happened in the aftermath of 9/11.

Tue 12   We had a great time at Fortified making pizzas. There were eleven children. In fact I met Marty and Linda in the village and had a chat about Jonny Quick and Lewis asked about Fortified so I was able to take him along. Margaret, Simone’s mother was there helping so with Jon Kear  and Catherine and me that made two blokes and two ladies helping. Lots of high spirits but lots of nice pizza too. We could still do with some more helpers in the children’s and youth work but it’s operating smoothly in spite of that.

Mon 18  Off to Goitre tonight to take their harvest service but just before I go, here’s a link to our latest song on BBC Radio Wales. It’s about 2 hours and 20 minutes into the Adam Walton Sunday night show available here on Listen Again:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/radiowales/shows/adamwalton.shtml

It’s in French and sung by Rachel so sorry if your language skills don’t extend to a social commentary patter song! Adam Walton does explain briefly what it’s about after he plays it.

Fri 22  About 20 of us went to see and hear Philip Yancey in Barry last night. A very enjoyable trip – I think it was the first time we’d had seven adults in our car and it was quite a riotous group. We arrived in plenty of time at the Memorial Hall in Barry and we could see it was going to packed. Funnily enough, I seemed to recognise about one in ten of the people milling around outside. I estimate about three thousand people were there. They directed us upstairs and the thing began on time with an introduction by Dave Pope, some songs and some drama. By common consent there wasn’t enough of Philip Yancey in the first half where it was a chat show format but he made up for that in the second half. I think again by common consent he’s not really a preacher. A very good writer of course but I felt emotionally unengaged by what he had to say about prayer. It was hot in there, too. A great evening though and definitely something to do again.

Thurs 28   Went into the school the other day with all the equipment to do an assembly teaching modern worship songs. I hope this is going to be a regular event. The children certainly enjoyed it and were bellowing for more! We took, laptop, projector, piano, drums, guitar, microphone and stand, amplifier . . . It was worth all the effort, though.

Recorded a song called ‘Sleep’ today and sent it off to Adam Walton. We’ve had the melody for a long time – in fact I wrote it out in spite of all the changes in time signature so that Catherine Handley could play it. I wrote a new set of words this week though after hearing Susannah and the Magical Orchestra’s version of ‘Love will tear us apart’. We recorded it in the same style – very close up and with a very echoey electric piano. Haunting.