Little fish, big pond

A little relaxation yesterday before a busy weekend: Mottisfont, to catch the last of the roses (the house is undergoing restoration, as you can see), then after our picnic lunch back home for a little harvest festival as we gathered in most of the apples from our two more productive trees. Later in the afternoon a quick swim in the English Channel - not many more opportunities this year, I fear. Now I see that we have clocked up 100,000 hits on this blog. Fr Ed Tomlinson achieved this in about three weeks of blogging, and this has been going on for almost a year. What's more, I guess half that number are me looking to see who else is updating blogs in the righthand column. For all that, it is a milestone of sorts.

Then today it was a celebration in the Lady Chapel (perversely called 'the Courtenay Chapel' because there's a theory that it has some connexion with the family of the Earls of Devon; big deal; I'd sooner it had a connection with Our Lady) in St Thomas', Lymington. Note St Ubaldesca in the bottom right light of the window (beneath what are nearly the five joyful mysteries). She has something to do with St John of Jerusalem and the Knights of Malta - as did the lady in whose memory the window was given.

Now gearing up for tomorrow's sacred Synod in London; a friend has emailed to say it will be very costly (it certainly is; the London crowd never consider how expensive it is for us yokels to get there - well over £30 for me, and much more for those coming from the Isle of Wight) and it will do little for those of us concerned to join the Ordinariate. It is likely to be all about how we must support those standing for General Synod, and how with one last heave we might get some crumb of a concession which will enable one or two more dressing-up 'Anglo-Catholics' to remain loyal members of the CofE plc. We'll see. I doubt if I shall have time to blog about it, since early on Saturday it is heigh-ho for St Edmundsbury and Fr Michael Peel's 50th of priesting, and then on Sunday a confirmation on behalf of +Keith in Thorpe-le-Soken (the parish before the end of the world in Frinton). Home on Monday, we hope.

When we join the ordinariate we shall have to become accustomed to being very small fish in a very large pond; so thought you might like to see some of the fish from Mottisfont. The image at the left of this blog, of the Lady Chapel in St Thomas', shows the blank section of wall in the centre of the window where I feel sure there would once have been an image of Our Lady - and certainly not of the Earl of Devon!