Mike's musings

More walking

Had another great walk with the Jo this afternoon. I've worked out that I'm doing nearly 4 miles an hour, when I'm moving at "stride pace", which is rather more than I expected. I did maybe another four and a half miles today, meaning that I did some 9 miles this weekend: maybe more. And I'm really shifting, believe me. I'm feeling so much fitter already - I was expecting to feel in quite a lot of pain, but that hasn't happened, which is very good. Very, very good (pain is, on balance, bad).

Finally got round to ripping the Razorlight album ("Vertigo"), which we bought months ago, and has been sitting in Moo's car since then. She's not even really that keen on it, either, but it just hasn't moved. It's ripping as I type.

Had a good supper with Si, D and Morgan today. I'd not seen Jo interacting with an older child before - not for an extended time, anyway - and it's fascinating. She followed Morgan around, desparate to be with him, and to play with the things that he was playing with. And she watched him, and clapped when he did things that she enjoyed: Moo had said a couple of days before that Jo had started clapping, but I'd not seen it before.

This morning, I took Jo to Long Melford church for a service. It was a communion service, and the organist is very good. He played a Dubois toccata at the end of the service which I knew quite well, and Jo and I (well, I, to be more honest) turned pages for him. I was very impressed. People were very welcoming, and it was an interesting sermon. Ian (the vicar (rector?)) had been on a 3 month sabbatical, and preached to a large extent on the welcome that he'd got in different churches as he went around the South of England. I was pleased to be made so welcome (though, as a young(er) man coming to a service with a baby, it's not a huge surprise), and had a good chat with a number of people afterwards. Ian even invited me to preach if I wanted to, which I found very touching. Ian was previously based at Cottenham, and has worked with a number of other ordinands from the Cambridge theological colleges (I think), and said how much he enjoys having them around. As I said, I was touched. I'd love to go back there: the music was good, the style was high, but informal, and the welcome friendly.

Next week, I'm preaching at Helion's Bumpstead (at 0930), and at Steeple Bumpstead (at 1100). Over the past few weeks, I've tended to end up preaching about what I've been reading, or studying, but I'm not sure whether the canon of the Old Testament's going to yield a very cogent sermon (apparently I'm allowed to use the same sermon twice). You're all welcome, as always. I'll try to remember to give a better idea of what I'm going to preach about over the next few days, but I really don't think it's going to be the foolish bridesmaids (which is the gospel reading for the Sunday). We'll see.