Across Iberia

What a holiday! It contained the sublime and the ridiculous, the amusing and the overwhelming.Here are a few pictures to prove the point. We went on Brittany Ferries (above) from Portsmouth to Santander, drove (over four days)  to Portugal, had a week with family there, then drove back to Bilbao for the return ferry. En route we met Bruno who had driven out from Madrid to see us.

The Plaza Maior in Salamanca where somehow Bruno found us

Bruno Ramos edits a Spanish Catholic Magazine, and I  have written one or two pieces for him about the Ordinariate, and about Anglican Spirituality.

Reredos in Coimbra Cathedral (former Jesuit Church)

Some of the best churches in both Spain and Portugal were originally creations of the Jesuits

From the sublime... who would expect to encounter Morris Dancing in Bilbao, next to the Guggenheim Museum? But then, when I visited Australia I came on a hunt (Yoiks, Tally-Ho! and all in hunting pink) just outside Adelaide. This Morris Side came, they told me, from Royal Deeside -  which is a bit unlikely too.

There was also an immense floral cat, created by Jeff Koons, sitting outside the Guggenheim -  Jane is there to give an idea of the scale of the creature.  The flowers are all  alive, so it must be a mammoth task renewing the display. We enjoyed the Guggenheim as a building (Gehry's major opus) but the exhibits were a disappointment. We much preferred the wonderful early mediaeval sculptures and paintings in the City museum.

This was a street poster about ceramics in another local  museum; how long would this remain in England before some graffito artist defaced it?   One of the best things about our trip was the friendliness of so many. We were poring over a map in Caldas de Rainha (where we managed to be lost several times) when a lady coming out of evening Mass took the trouble to speak to us (in very good English) and point us on the right road. From a badge on her coat Jane realised she was a Guider - she certainly was for us. This was only one of many such kindnesses.

We went to Sunday Mass twice in that church (Our Lady Immaculate) in Caldas - both an 8.30am and a Vigil Mass the following week were very fully atended. That is in Portugal. Then in Bilbao we went into the parish church near our hotel where therfe were fifty or so at a mid-week Mass.. At the end everyone (except us) sang a hymn to Our Lady in. I think, Basque. We had come across protestors with banners earlier in the day wanting more rights for the Basque people. 

Just a simple parish church, not unlike Our Lady Queen of Peace in Southbourne, really - except maybe for its scale, the Reredos, the Dome ... oh, and pretty well everything else.

The view from out hotel at the end of our stay included the Railway Station on the other side of the river. They said of Balliol College after its Victorian rebuild, "C'est magnifique, mais ce ne'est pas la Gare" - well, this really IS the Station, and very beautiful it is too. Now I realise I've not given you many exterior shots: so birdwatchers might like these storks on a church in Zamora.

While the architecturally inclined might care to see something which at first sight calls Canterbury Cathedral to mind:

But this is Salamanca.

And not to let Portugal feel outdone, here is the exterior of the former Jesuit Church, now the Cathedral of Coimbra  

I did say from the sublime to  the ridiculous so whoever thought this cliffside was a good place for a bus stop?

Just a few feet away is a drop down to the Atlantic.

Which brought us home again (the Atlantic, not the bus) - or rather the Ferry 'Cap Finisterre' did, across a rather turbulent Bay of Biscay, and so  to Portsmouth.

Pompey

Newcomers

Just a brief unillustrated blog today to announce the Reception & Confirmation of two more members of our Ordinariate Mission. Andrew Hawthorne was an Anglican clergyman - most recently serving as an assistant priest in charge of St George's, Christchurch. Very good that three of his former congregation joined us to welcome him into the Ordinariate. With him was his fourteen year old daughter Emilia - who has taken the confirmation name Jane, remembering St Jane Frances de Chantal.

We had a jolly little party after Mass - somehow most of the forty-five at Church today squeezed into the small Hall at Our Lady Queen of Peace where we drank a toast to Andrew and Emilia Jane - then my Jane and I said farewell for a while. We are off to Iberia on Tuesday, going on the overnight boat from Portsmouth to Santander then driving down into Portugal where we hope to meet up with our daughter and family for a week of their holiday. So, despite having a new Tablet - no, not that dire publication, but an electronic wizard which combines phone and pad - called, imaginatively, an Asus Fonepad - I shall hope to maintain blog silence until our return. Your prayers would be welcome; we read of wild fires in Spain and Portugal, and temperatures currently around 37C (and reckoned to get hotter).

When we return plans will be well underway for Evensong, Procession, Benediction and a bunfight [ 3pm on Saturday 21st September]. This was the nearest available date we could get to the Feast of  Our Lady of Walsingham. We are inviting friends from local churches, Anglican as well as Catholic. If you are in the vicinity of Southbourne (BH6 3ER) come and join us - you will be very welcome.

Happy Day

Fifty years ago on this very day (which was also a Saturday) Jane and I were joined in Holy Matrimony by our then Vicar at St Mark's North End, Canon Peter May. St Mark's went soon after we left Portsmouth to be replaced by the ugliest brutalist concrete abortion in England, so we could not go back there to recall our wedding day. Instead we went to one of the newest of Pompey's attractions,  the recently completed Museum Gallery of the Mary Rose. It is spectacular.

This is just one of the many guns brought up from the seabed - and the perspex housing lets you  see the whole of the works - though in some places even the timber gun-carriages have been preserved. One of the more poignant memorials is a case containing religious artefacts, mostly Rosaries but also the covers of some books of prayers, crosses and so on. This was in the latter part of  Henry VIIIs reign, after the breach with Rome. It was only thirty or so years later that his second daughter, Elizabeth, proscribed the use of the Rosary. So  Mary Rose sank at that crucial time when England might have remained Catholic - by Elizabeth's reign the breach was irreparable, and the anti-Roman propaganda was doing its worst. We still live with the damage begun then.

The curators have created a mirror image of the original ship, so on one side you see the timbers raised from the sea-bed, and on the other the multitude of items taken from the wreck, set up as if on continuations of the decks. We thought it  would be a visit of maybe half an hour - instead we were engrossed for three times as long.

Once again my pictures are refusing to download to the blog, so the one above will have to stand for all the rest. Very frustrating. We ended up having tea (with a wonderful view of Victory, stripped of her Masts and undergoing yet another refit). Then a dash home, a brief respite and a change of clothes, and out to a very good evening meal at Gordleton Mill. A lovely way to mark a great day; and tomorrow it is off to Southbourne for Mass with our great Ordinariate gang.

Real Wessex

Each year we try to get to the New Forest Show. It is a great three-day event where the great and good rub shoulders with people like us. The first day threatened rain, so we went on Wednesday, the middle day of the three.

Ringwood Brewery Dray

 We especially enjoy the parade of horse-drawn vehicles; sadly Youngs of Wandsworth is no more (our son ran a pub of theirs in Oxford) now amalgamated - so no more Youngs' farm, no more heavy horses. The local brewers, though, Ringwood, were there with a splendid turn-out.




Co-op Funeral Services

It may be just my professional background,  but I couldn't help noticing a certain funereal note at the show. There was a marvellously daffy 'hearse' which was a tandem bike with a sidecar and on it a woven coffin. Then there were various crafts, among them basket weavers - with just such another coffin on display. Among the heavy horse teams were not just one but two undertakers - clearly the only way to go if you want to have been someone in the New Forest.

Once again some of my pictures refuse to download but at least a few cattle and sheep have made it

 

 

 Sadly my pictures of the Earl and Countess of Wessex, who were stars of the show, are among the refuseniks. So  you will have to take my word for it that whereas all the officials, male and female, were heavily overdressed, neither of their Royal Highnesses wore a hat, and both seemed splendidly un-stuffy.


 

In case this is insufficiently churchy, be reassured; I said Mass earlier in the day for our Ordinariate Mission in Southbourne.

Deaconings

Bishop Richard Moth, Bishop to the Forces, ordained four men as Deacons on Saturday - the first Ordinariate Ordination in the Ordinariate Church in Soho. Among them was our own Darryl Jordan, formerly an Anglican Cleric in Texas, and more recently an assistant at the Priory Church in Christchurch. Here he is supported by two clergy wives - his own on the left, and Mrs Hawthorne on the right. Her husband and their daughter are to be received and confirmed in mid-August. Ceri herself became a Catholic eighteen months ago.

 

 

On Sunday Fr Darryl  preached for our Ordinariate Mission for the first time, then stayed on to Deacon the Parish Mass at Our Lady Queen of Peace for Fr Gerry. Meanwhile we had a short study in the Hall before I had to leave for Central  Bournemouth. There I had the unusual experience of saying Mass in an Anglican Church. The Vicar of St Peter's is kindly allowing Fr Bruce Barnes and his people to use his church while their own church building, the Sacred Heart on Richmond Hill, is undergoing major restoration.

 

 

St Peter's Bournemouth, archt. G E Street

 

 



Celebrations

First there was our nephew and his bride of four weeks, from their new home in London. Then his parents (my wife's sister and her husband) who were married 40 years ago this year. Then us, soon to pass the 50 year mark. So all the family spent last weekend in Bourton on the Water, where we had rented a large house. It was a very merry party, with our daughter and her husband coming from South Wales with our grandson, our son joining us from Lancaster (he took the train to Wolverhapton and cycled the 60+ miles from there) and our best man came from Bristol - by car.

Bourton is so much visited that even the fish and chip shops have notices in Japanese. Fortunately the house was a little back  from the main road behind a high wall, so the tourist din scarcely reached us. It was, I think, only my second weekend away from our Ordinariate Group this year, so on Sunday Jane and I were able to worship together in Our Lady Help of Christians. Pevsner spends two pages describing the (Anglican) parish church and its architectural riches. The Catholic parish church would not require so much print: but it is clearly greatly loved.

 

The hymns were familiar from Anglican days, though accompanied on a karaoke machine. The priest was a vistor like us, holding the fort while the Parish Priest was on holiday. Mass concluded with the Angelus. The place was comfortably full - I  overheard one person say on leaving "I expect there are visitors" - but though there were, no one made any attempt to welcome any of them or ask who they were. I  don't think visitors get away ungreeted at our Ordinariate masses - but there, we are a small concern,  so it is easier to know everyone.

 

 

 

Then again, we were greeted at the Peace: and the service sheet said "Welcome to all our visitors! Our churches have induction loop faciilites. Use the T setting on your hearing aid." So that was some comfort - or would have been if we had hearing aids.

 

In the afternoon some of us visted a National Trust house at Chastleton. We were met at the entrance to the car park by a picket of locals protesting against Sunday opening of the House. The Trust, they claimed, had promised there would be no weekend opening, and that numbers would be kept very small. Now they are inundated with thousands of sightseers, and they feel betrayed. But whether it is a village with a National Trust property, or a settlement on the route of the proposed High Speed Rail Link, money is always the winner.

 

The Church at the gates of Chastleton House

 

So it was with a slightly guilty conscience that we queued for the house to open. The former manor house had been the home of the Catesbys. One of the Guides suggested it had been sold to fund the purchase of gunpowder for the plot to blow up Parliament - of which plot, apparently, she disapproved. The Jones family which built the present house in the early years of James I were Royalists, who suffered greatly during  the Commonwealth. Among the items the Trust acquired with the house were some splendid Jacobite glasses and decanters - the volunteer steward rather missed the point when he called them "Jacobean".  So perhaps the Joneses count as proto-Anglo-Catholics.

 

Cracked fragement of an Annunciation window in Chastleton Church

 

The high point of the weekend was a celebratory meal just a few miles out of Bourton. We toasted everyone, and were toasted ourselves. Helpfully our brother-in-law had organised taxis to get us all safely back. Then on Sunday evening and Monday in ones and twos we drifted off, back to normality from a memorable couple of days together. As Jane's sister had said, we must make the most of every opportunity or we shall only meet up at funerals. Not so long now to my eightieth, if I'm spared ...

 

 

 

 

Ground (hedge) Hog Day

The day began especially well; a new family at the 10.30 mass, with a very new baby - who became a visual aid when the Gospel spoke about the disciples as "infants". The total trust of  that little girl  sitting on her dad's lap throughout Mass was a joy to us all. Dad is Syrian, Mum, though English, has parents who were in Argentina - so Maria, who come from there, was delighted to welcome them, and spent most of coffee time with the baby girl in her arms.

 From Southbourne Jane and I went over to West Bournemouth (or is it  Poole?) to meet my former Secretary Mary and her husband Gerald, who have an apartment near Branksome Chine. We had lunch together and caught up on news from St Albans.

The garden then occupied me for some hours, dead-heading roses and watering - it has been so hot and dry for days now. Late this evening Jane gave a saucer of milk to the resident hedgehog. What a charming creature -  though they are reckoned to be full of fleas. It is difficult to scratch, I suppose,  when your fur is all prickles. So, a rather unchurchy post, but thought you might like at least to see the hedgehog.

 

 

By an odd bit of mismanagement Fr Brian and are are both away this weekend, and our Group will not be worshipping together - but more about that next week, I hope. And next week, too, Darryl  Jordan (former curate at Christchurch Priory) is to be ordained Deacon for the Ordinariate.